Oral Answers to Questions

WORK AND PENSIONS

The Secretary of State was asked—

Labour Statistics (Nottingham, North)

Graham Allen: How many young people were unemployed and claiming benefit in Nottingham, North on 1 December (a) 1997 and (b) 2004.

Jane Kennedy: As at October 2004, there were 745 unemployed young people in my hon. Friend's constituency. This represents a decrease of 22 per cent. since October 1997.The number in long-term unemployment there is now 395, which is down from 1,165 in 1997.

Graham Allen: I thank my right hon. Friend for those statistics. Will she also bear in mind the fact that, behind the statistics, there are people such as Clare Robertson, my constituent from Bulwell, who had no hope of getting the kind of job in administration that she wanted? She was given training through the gateway programme, and given advice by the job adviser. She was also given a subsidy to ensure that a local employer took her on to do the job that she wanted. I understand that, today, Clare has a full-time job as a result of all that. This is surely the best investment that we can make in our individuals. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that, as long as we are in government, we never throw that investment away, as the Conservatives would?

Jane Kennedy: In 1993, the number of jobless young people not in full-time education stood at 1,570,000. That is more than 450,000 more than today, yet we are criticised for the 150,000 under-25s who have been unemployed for more than six months, as defined by the International Labour Organisation. However, many of those young people will, like my hon. Friend's constituents, participate in the new deal, and I agree with him that it is certainly one of the best investments of taxpayers' money that one could wish for.

Archy Kirkwood: Whereas it is true that the number of young people on jobseeker's allowance in Nottingham, North has fallen, they now represent a bigger proportion than they did in 1997. Then, 26 per cent. were on jobseeker's allowance; now, the figure is 34 per cent. Does the Minister accept that more could still be done to support young people in getting into the labour market? Will she also look at the lessons that could be derived from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's report, which identified four wards in Nottingham as still being subjected to great poverty? Will she use mechanisms such as the social fund and jobseeker's allowance to give young people more support through their lives?

Jane Kennedy: That is a very thoughtful question. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Rowntree Foundation's report pointed that out. However, it also complimented the work that we have done to tackle poverty. I accept that youth unemployment remains too high, and that we have more to do in that regard. That is why there was a range of measures in the pre-Budget report last week, including a concentration on skills, so that more young people who are in unwaged full-time training can pick up financial assistance in the same way as others get the education maintenance allowance.

Pensions

Derek Wyatt: What funding additional to the £400 million already announced will be available to former employees of ASW Sheerness, whose occupational pension scheme is in administration.

Bill Tynan: When he expects individuals who lost pension entitlement owing to scheme closures will benefit from the financial assistance scheme.

Alan Johnson: We are keen that the industry should have the opportunity to offer support to the financial assistance scheme, either by voluntary financial contributions or assistance in kind. In April, we will set up the body to administer the FAS and, following the formal consultation, we will lay regulations before Parliament, and make payments as soon as practicable thereafter.

Derek Wyatt: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Will he clarify one issue? There is to be a review of the scheme after three years. If there is insufficient money in the scheme by then, will the review allow money additional to the £400 million to be paid in?

Alan Johnson: We have announced that £400 million will be the amount of money available over 20 years. The review will take place after three years, when we shall look at how the scheme is operating. We have made no commitment to increase the funding at that stage.

Bill Tynan: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the continuing enormous concern as to whether the £400 million will be enough. I was contacted this week by one of my constituents, who has been told that he will receive £8,600 from his wound-up scheme. He asked me whether the £400 million will be used to make up the one third that he will not get from his scheme, as he hopes. We know that there is going to be a certain amount of money in the scheme's funds. Will my right hon. Friend tell us whether that £400 million will be enough, or whether there will be a shortfall because of the amount of people needing to receive money?

Alan Johnson: We calculated back in June and we published a statement to say that we believed from the information we had that about 65,000 people needed assistance with schemes that had become insolvent. We made our assessment on that basis. Obviously, we need much more information, but let me make this absolutely clear once again: we have not said that we will be able to match the assistance—the compensation available—in the pension protection fund, nor do we accept any liability for what has happened in the past.
	We have said that we should be able to provide some assistance, particularly to those people who have lost the most and are in the worst position in terms of being closer to retirement and who cannot make up that money because of that proximity. So we have made it absolutely clear that we do not in any way pledge to meet every single amount lost from these schemes. We also said in our statement of 2 December that we will have a de minimis £10 below which we will not offer compensation.

Nigel Waterson: Has the Secretary of State seen that the US parent company blames his pension legislation for the most unfortunate breakdown of negotiations over the Turner and Newell pension scheme? Does he accept the view of industry experts that that very collapse could swamp both the FAS and the PPF? Is it not high time that he admitted what everyone else already knows—that the FAS is not remotely adequate for the task it faces?

Alan Johnson: Well, I have heard a few good jokes over the Christmas period, but I have not heard that one before. It is a real cracker—our pension protection fund is responsible for Federal-Mogul's problems with Turner and Newell. I do not accept that at all, although Conservative Members may be more gullible than we are on these Benches.
	The situation with Federal-Mogul is very serious. That company is not in insolvency and we expect that it can meet its commitments. Indeed, negotiations are going on now. We think that the amount in the FAS will give proper compensation. I question the assertion made by the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) that, somehow, the Opposition could do better than this, because from what I see—£35 billion spending cuts and, I presume, 100,000 staff to go from the Department for Work and Pensions—I doubt whether they would have the money even to administer the FAS, let alone—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think we will leave that one.

Paul Holmes: Those facing financial devastation as a result of losing their occupational pensions through no fault of their own include constituents of mine who work for Chesterfield Cylinders, Dema Glass and Coalite. They soon saw that the £400 million in the FAS was a cruel con trick; it was far too little to provide the compensation needed. Ministers seem to accept this, because they have said that they hope that industry will make up the shortfall. If, as it appears from the Secretary of State's earlier answer, industry has not provided any money to make up the shortfall, are the Government prepared to see these people face a bleak old age, or will they make up the difference?

Alan Johnson: The hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) has put on a bit of weight since we last saw him—it is pleasant to have the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) stepping in. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's point that this is a cruel deception. Most people thought it extraordinary that a Government would provide such assistance in retrospect. Certainly in view of the experience under previous Governments, no matter what we are considering, it is very rare for such a thing to happen and it is very unlikely that it would have happened under the previous Government. We think that the money available is sufficient. We have also said right from the start that we would welcome a financial contribution from the industry. It is fair to say that we have not been swamped with money, but we live in hope.
	There is also the money that is still in some of those schemes and the deemed buy-back arrangements that could add extra money to it, but £400 million is a significant contribution for the Government to make, giving some financial assistance with the real problems that the hon. Gentleman raises on behalf of his constituents.

Geoffrey Robinson: I agree with my right hon. Friend in dismissing the hypocritical and nonsensical remarks from the Opposition. In respect of Federal-Mogul, can he confirm if not today, then in the near future, that if indeed the Americans have resiled and remain in the position of repudiating the undertakings they gave to Members of all parties in the House some weeks ago, and that if the pension fund were to go into wind-up—a second order would be necessary to dispose of the assets, which could not come into operation until April next year—that pension fund would then benefit from the PPF arrangements and that, largely, the commitments could be met in that way?

Alan Johnson: I confirm that in the scenario that my hon. Friend paints that would be the situation; it would qualify for the PPF. It is also relevant to point out that there would be a substantial amount of money anyway, to assist us with that situation. Also, the money paid out from the PPF—if it came to that, and let us hope it does not—would not be paid out for several years. So the PPF is adequately placed to meet any commitment, including one from Turner and Newell.

Patrick McLoughlin: The Secretary of State said a few moments ago that he lived in hope. My constituents live in England, and they want to know what has happened over the past few weeks to the Turner and Newell pension fund, which they thought was sorted out, but which they now find has a great question mark hanging over it? Never mind living in hope—what hope is there for them?

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman and I have clashed on various occasions, but in a good-natured way. I cannot understand a question that seems to place the onus in these negotiations on those on the Government Front Bench, the Opposition Front Bench or any other person in the House. The responsibility for the situation in relation to Turner and Newell and Federal-Mogul, which is of huge concern to his constituents and those of others around the House, is a matter for the company, its trade unions and its shareholders. It is up to them to find a solution to the problem, and I very much hope that he will join me in urging them to redouble their efforts to do so.

Frank Field: The Secretary of State keeps talking about the Government having put up £400 million. May I remind him that it is my constituents who are putting up that money, and they think that it is a very generous settlement? But as they and practically everyone else in the House do not believe that the £400 million will be adequate, who in the Government is blocking the suggestion, which is supported on both sides of the House, that the Government use some of the unclaimed assets to meet the bill, so that people have their pensions met in full?

Alan Johnson: I agree with my right hon. Friend that we should always be careful about talking about Government money—of course it is taxpayers' money. I also agree with him completely that his constituents and mine think it a very generous settlement. In terms of what we do with so-called orphan funds, we want to reunite those unclaimed assets with their rightful owners. It is a mistake to base policy on a financial assistance scheme of taking money when we do not know how much is there—I have heard estimates varying from £170,000 to billions of pounds—or on seeking to take money from accounts over which we have no control and which are owned by other people. The £400 million settlement, which is generous, as he recognises, gives far more confidence to the people affected than the suggestion that we can somehow match that from orphan funds.

Dave Watts: Has my right hon. Friend had the chance to study my early-day motion 359, which calls on the pension industry to make a contribution? Does he agree that there is a moral obligation on the pension industry to make a substantial contribution to this fund?

Alan Johnson: I have studied my hon. Friend's early-day motion in great depth—I did very little else over the weekend—and know it word for word. It is an important early-day motion, as it matches what we would like, which is a contribution from the industry. We live in hope, as the hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) reminded me, and now that the FAS is on the statute book, and as we get closer to finalisation, I still hope that we will see contributions coming from that quarter.

Fuel Poverty

Iain Wright: What estimate he has made of the number of pensioners in Hartlepool living in households suffering from fuel poverty; and how this number has changed since 1997.

Chris Pond: I think that this is the first opportunity that my hon. Friend has had to ask an oral question in the House. May I say how well he did it? He will be aware that we halved the number of households in fuel poverty by 2001. We have an ambition, as far as it is practical, to eliminate fuel poverty by 2010. No figures are available for Hartlepool or other constituencies separately, but I would expect that the improvement in his constituency would be along those lines.

Iain Wright: I welcome the Minister's comments, which have taken away my voice. That halving is astonishing and welcome. The evidence reinforces the belief of many that this Government have done more than any other for the poorest pensioners in the country. But will he agree that fuel poverty is still not zero; and what steps has he taken to ensure that that figure is achieved by 2010, and preferably before?

Chris Pond: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He will be aware that by Christmas, 18,000 of his constituents will have received the winter fuel payment of up to £300, and 3,000 will receive the additional payments of up to £400. That will make a major contribution to ensuring that no pensioner in Hartlepool must choose between keeping warm and other items of expenditure. Our fuel poverty strategy, which we have recently republished as an action programme, is making sure not only that we deal with the issue of poverty, through winter fuel payments and pension credit, but that we put an emphasis through Warm Front on energy efficiency and working with energy suppliers to ensure that no vulnerable households find themselves unable to meet their fuel costs.

Brian Iddon: The Government have indeed done a good job on fuel poverty so far, but there are darks clouds on the horizon, given increasing utility prices. A 12 per cent. gas price increase, for example, is likely to return half a million people to fuel poverty. Have the Government considered imposing a windfall tax on utility companies to protect the fuel poor at least until we persuade the Europeans to liberalise their energy markets?

Chris Pond: Our fuel action plan was based on the expected increase in utility prices in the near future, but we will keep it under review to minimise the impact of any further increases on vulnerable households, through energy efficiency programmes and whatever other measures are necessary for us to stay on track for our target of eliminating fuel poverty by 2010, as far as is practicable. As for my hon. Friend's windfall tax proposal, we will take it as one of the earliest representations for the Budget.

Female Pensioners

Dari Taylor: How his Department's policies have affected female pensioners since 1997.

James Purnell: What the effect of his Department's policies on female pensioners has been since 1997.

Malcolm Wicks: Since coming to office in 1997 we have taken significant action to improve the pensions of women, and we are continuing to do so. We are tackling the legacy of past inequalities in society and the pension system through pension credit and other measures. As a result, men and women receive approximately the same amount from the state pension system.
	As the Pensions Commission recognised,
	"a number of recent changes in the state system will improve the future position of female pensioners".
	We are not complacent, however. We intend to continue to make progress, and have undertaken to publish a report on women and pensions next year.

Dari Taylor: Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that if the basic state pension were the prime source of income for women in retirement, that would be disastrous for them? More than 85 per cent. of women gain little from it, if anything, and more than 60 per cent. have no entitlement to an income from it. Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that such an arrangement would be a disaster, and in so doing acknowledge that the Conservative party's policy is an absolute nonsense?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister need not bother to do that.

Malcolm Wicks: I will not be seduced, as a politician, into being political about this, but I do acknowledge that gender differences and assumptions about gender in the past—some have now been rectified for a younger group of women—have caused a big difference in terms of access to the full basic state pension. That is why we are not tempted to put all the extra resources into a link between earnings and the basic state pension, which would be good news for many men but not such good news for women.
	One of the successes of pension credit is the high take-up of the guarantee. I am pleased to say that 320,000 more pensioners—by definition, the poorest—receive the guarantee element than did so in April 2003. Whereas under the Conservatives the guarantee level was a miserly £69 a week for a single person, from next April it will be £109 a week. That is the difference—not just words, but £40 a week—between what the Conservatives did and what a Labour Government are delivering.

James Purnell: I thank my hon. Friend for visiting my constituency recently to see the efforts made by Tameside to raise the level of take-up of the guarantee. Does he agree that integrating all the different agencies dealing with housing benefit and the Pension Service is the way to get people to sign up, and will he spread that knowledge throughout the system?

Malcolm Wicks: I thank my hon. Friend for inviting me to visit Tameside. I was very impressed to see what a progressive local authority can do to deliver benefit entitlements to people in need. As my hon. Friend knows, we developed joint teams as part of our link-age project. Social services departments worked with local branches of the Pension Service, joined in some areas by primary care trusts or voluntary bodies such as Age Concern. That is how we deliver a welfare state locally, based on the needs of elderly people. In the past we have tended to expect elderly people to discover an often complex local welfare state, but Tameside is showing the way ahead. We intend to roll out its scheme throughout the country during the next year or two.

Annabelle Ewing: The Minister will be aware that less than half of women pensioners in Scotland are entitled to the full basic state pension and that, after seven years of Labour Government, one in five pensioners in Scotland still lives in poverty. In light of the same, will he undertake to make representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to introduce in his Budget a citizens pension, thus ending the Government's discredited means-testing?

Malcolm Wicks: There is a rich debate about the future and we are all engaged in it, but given the gender differences when it comes to national insurance and access to the basic state pension, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) pointed out, I wonder whether the hon. Lady would welcome the impact that pension credit is having on poorer pensioners in Scotland. Two groups that overlap—the older elderly, often over-80, and women—are benefiting from that selective approach to delivering social policy. I am sure that, in a more moderate moment, she would want to welcome that.

David Willetts: May I draw the Minister of State's attention to the proposals that we have made today for giving women a better deal from the contributory state pension? The Secretary of State was on the radio at lunchtime saying that it was an absolutely brilliant idea with which he totally agreed—

Alan Johnson: indicated dissent.

David Willetts: Well, at least he said that he would consider it. I invite the Minister of State to go a little further and to recognise that the problem that people have been talking about—the fact that women do not have full entitlement to the basic state pension under current contribution rules—could be tackled by the practical proposals that we have made today.

Malcolm Wicks: Although I have not had the privilege yet of reading the hon. Gentleman's speech, I understand that he was predicting what a future Labour party manifesto may say, so having lost the job to write his own, he is drafting part of ours. We are in favour in the Department of a flexible labour market.
	As I say, there is a rich debate going on about the future state pension. I seriously welcome the hon. Gentleman's contribution to that debate, but we need to be careful about different cohorts and groups. What is right for the elderly person, often the elderly lady over 80, will not necessarily be right for her daughter, let alone her grand-daughter. More workers today, including young workers, are members of occupational pension schemes. We welcome today's publication of the report by the Employer Task Force on Pensions. We need to have a combination of occupational pensions, others savings and state pensions, so that today's young will have incomes in retirement above means-tested levels.

David Willetts: The speech was to Labour's think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, so I thought the least I could do was to announce what would be in Labour's next manifesto. If the Minister of State is being so open-minded, does he accept that there is a problem with the way in which the pension credit treats women pensioners? Does he accept that the savings credit rules, which assume that people have a full pension from the basic state system, in practice penalise women? Does he further accept that it is bad enough that many people find themselves facing a withdrawal rate of 40p in the £1 under pension credit, but many women pensioners, because of the way in which the savings credit works, find themselves facing a loss of £1 of benefit for every £1 they have saved? Will he therefore include in his review the effect of the Government's own means-tested benefits on women?

Malcolm Wicks: The hon. Gentleman has made a serious point about quite an intricate but important matter: the guarantee and what we say about savings. Will he acknowledge—not now, because he cannot come back at me—the fact that 320,000 extra pensioners, those most in need, are now getting the guarantee compared with only a while ago, and that that is a major step forward? In terms of his honesty, it has obviously done him some good going to the IPPR. I think what he is saying is that it was surely wrong that, under a previous Government, every extra £1 of savings, or work or occupational pensions was knocked off the income support system, pound for pound. I repeat that, in those days, the guarantee was £69 a week. In spring next year—I think that it will be a good spring in terms of weather of differing kinds—we will be giving £40 more a week to single pensioners. That is the difference between us. He does a good lecture but the delivery of his party is pretty poor.

Pension Credit

Huw Edwards: How many pensioners in Wales receive pension credit.

Maria Eagle: As at 31 October, more than 154,000 pensioner households were receiving pension credit in Wales, with an average weekly award of almost £42 a week. In Monmouth, more than 3,000 households were receiving an average of almost £42 a week extra as a result of pension credit.

Huw Edwards: I welcome that answer. Does my hon. Friend agree that the 154,000 households in Wales, including the 3,000 in Monmouth, will find pension credit an incredibly valuable resource, but does she acknowledge that perhaps a third of the poorest pensioners who may be entitled to the credit do not get it? What is being done to improve take-up?

Maria Eagle: I acknowledge that some pensioners who are entitled to the credit have not yet taken it up, but we are doing a lot of work to try to improve the situation. I do not agree that it is necessarily the poorest pensioners who have not taken it up; in many instances, it is those who would receive only a small extra amount and have judged that it is not worth their while to claim it. We are none the less redoubling our efforts in the Department to re-contact people we think most likely to be entitled who have not applied, and our local service is working in all communities to try to improve take-up. In my hon. Friend's constituency there were 235 home visits in October, and since April there have been 1,482 home visits in south-west Wales. We are out there, day in, day out, trying to encourage pensioners to take up their entitlement.

Nigel Evans: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Is it about Wales?

Nigel Evans: It has been a short 12 years, Mr. Speaker.
	Many pensioners from Wales who might have been eligible for pension credit have moved overseas, for all sorts of reasons, perhaps to live with their families, in countries where, unfortunately, the uprating of pensions does not apply. Can the Minister now have another look at those pensioners from Wales, and indeed the rest of the United Kingdom, who may be eligible but live in one of the 145 countries where the pension simply has not been uprated?

Maria Eagle: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that there are different agreements with different countries, and there are ongoing court cases in respect of this matter. I would be interested to know if that was a pledge from the Back Benches of the Conservative party, even if it relates only to Wales, because we will add it to the extra cost of a Tory Government.

Incapacity Benefit

Andrew Rosindell: If he will make a statement on his plans for incapacity benefit reform.

Alan Johnson: Nine out of 10 people expect to work again when they first claim incapacity benefits. The pathways to work project is helping them to realise that aim.
	As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced on 2 December, we will extend the pathways to work pilots to an additional 14 Jobcentre Plus districts from October 2005. This will mean that our pathways approach will cover about a third of the country and be available to about 900,000 people on incapacity benefits.

Andrew Rosindell: I thank the Secretary of State for that comprehensive reply, but am I not right in believing that since 1997 there has been a 53 per cent. increase in the number of people claiming incapacity benefit on grounds of mental health or behavioural difficulties, which is nearly two out of every five claimants? Is not the truth that this rise is absolutely out of control?

Alan Johnson: The answer to both questions is no. The hon. Gentleman should refrain from believing everything he reads in the press. First, the number of people coming on to incapacity benefits has fallen by a third; had it continued on the same trend as under the Conservative Government it would now be more than 4 million rather than 2.7 million. Secondly, on this so-called explosion in the number claiming on mental health grounds, there were 210,000 in 1997, and there are now 230,000—hardly an explosion. The same press report, which talked about 500,000 men who may have swapped their income because it was so profitable to go on to incapacity benefit—that is, 3,500 a year—came from a Bank of England survey, which clearly stated that it was about what happened in the late 80s and early 90s in the context of massive economic decline. It said:
	"it seems unlikely that this 1990s' experience will be repeated".

Stephen Hepburn: What is the Secretary of State going to do to improve the standard of medical examination? Doctors are paid an absolute fortune to disbar genuine claimants from their rightful benefits on often very dubious grounds.

Alan Johnson: I have not heard that particular criticism before, but I am willing to look at any cases that my hon. Friend might want to raise with us. The personal capability assessment is one of the most stringent gateways to incapacity benefit in the world, as judged by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Indeed, in terms of the medical profession's work, the problem lies not with the PCA but at the turnstile, as it were, in that the sick-note culture is putting many people off working when it would be better for their health to stay at work. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extension of the existing trials to enable rehabilitation and to allow Employment Service people to get involved in GPs' surgeries, in order to ensure that people do not go down the incapacity benefit route. We should bear it in mind that the record shows that those who are on incapacity benefit for a year will remain on it for eight years, and that those who are on it for two years will die on it.

Paul Goodman: The figures quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell) were official figures, not press figures, and according to them incapacity benefit claims made on mental health and behavioural grounds now number more than 1 million for the first time. But regardless of that, if the Secretary of State believes that these claims are under control, can he tell us when they will stabilise or fall?

Alan Johnson: They have already fallen for the first time. According to the most recent labour market statistics, there has been a very small fall of 4,000. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman shakes his head but they are the statistics. Of course, we want to go much further, but I should make the rather obvious point that we are still dealing with the problems arising from the Conservative Government's policy of transferring people from unemployment benefit to incapacity benefit; indeed, my hon. Friends still have to deal with such problems day in, day out in their constituencies. That policy left us with 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit when we took office.
	The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) is of course right to say that this issue needs to be tackled, and it is being tackled effectively for the first time through pathways to work, which is enabling the Government to give a helping hand to those who really want to re-engage with society, but who did not have the necessary help and financial support in the past.

Kevin Brennan: Many people on incapacity benefit are not capable of holding down conventional full-time jobs but are nevertheless keen to work, and they might be able to hold down part-time jobs if the right opportunities are provided. What are the Government doing to help such people?

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend will have been pleased to hear the Chancellor announcing in the pre-Budget report that we will look at the rules on permitted work. That will go a long way towards helping my hon. Friend's constituents and others who are in that situation.

Private Pensions

Tim Loughton: What plans he has to encourage an increase in private pension provision.

Malcolm Wicks: For most people, a good occupational private pension will be a key part of a comfortable retirement. We are therefore keen to increase private pension provision, which is why we introduced stakeholder pensions and why we are taking forward our radical programme of pension reform. The Pensions Act 2004 will make it easier for employers to run pension schemes, and along with our programme of informed choice, it will help people to plan for and save for their retirement. The Turner commission is advising us on the future of pensions, and under the terms of the 2004 Act the pension regulator plays a crucial part in providing security and integrity. I am pleased to announce that David Norgrove has been appointed chairman of the new pensions regulator. He will take up his post in January.

Tim Loughton: Given that one of the Government's excuses back in 1997 for their £5 billion annual raid on pensions was the strong rise in the UK stock market under the previous, Conservative Government—since when the UK market has been one of the worst performing major markets in the world—does the Minister not feel duty bound to take rather more seriously the plight of private pension holders facing a £100 billion black hole? I am thinking not least of constituents of mine approaching retirement with Turner and Newell pensions, whose enormous prospective shortfalls will not be remotely covered by the Government's compensation scheme.

Malcolm Wicks: As the Secretary of State said, we are looking at the matter of Turner and Newell very carefully. We have the institutions, the financial assistance scheme and, more importantly, the PPF in place, should any further action on any scheme be required. On the abolition of payable tax credits, the hon. Gentleman is making a very partisan point. It was an essential part of a package of corporation tax reforms that included both the main and small companies. [Interruption.] While the Secretary of State is enjoying the heckling coming from the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), the question is whether the Conservative party would abolish the policy—

Alan Johnson: The shadow Secretary of State!

Malcolm Wicks: Indeed, I am sorry. When the shadow Secretary of State was asked at the end of 2002 whether he would change the policy, he replied:
	"Actually, I don't think we'll be doing that. Helping pension funds doesn't mean going back to the same system we had before, you know."
	Well, Mr. Speaker, now we know.

Rob Marris: May I suggest to my hon. Friend that the way to increase private pension provision is to continue doing what the Government have been doing, which is to bolster confidence in the private pension system? Given that £14 billion a year goes on tax relief and that Department for Work and Pensions research shows that it has no effect on bolstering those pensions, I seek my hon. Friend's reassurance that tax relief for private pensions will not be increased and that the Government will continue to bolster confidence and to bolster the state system.

Malcolm Wicks: As my hon. Friend knows, issues of tax incentives are a matter for the Chancellor. There are certainly some major tax incentives in the system to encourage people to invest in occupational schemes. Our priority is to ensure that the many millions of people who are not in decent work or occupational pensions have the opportunity of being so, and we would like it to be on a voluntary basis. The Employer Task Force on Pensions has made some interesting recommendations, but whether or not compulsion is necessary is a matter that we have asked the Turner commission to review for us. We will look at its recommendations and make a judgment in due course.

State Second Pension

Anne Campbell: If he will make a statement on the impact of the state second pension on women.

Malcolm Wicks: For the first time we now have a system that helps more women to build up a decent second pension. State second pension provides an additional pension for low earners, including carers and disabled people—the very people who were excluded from the previous state earnings-related pensions scheme. State second pension will lift the incomes of a generation of future female pensioners. The latest data from the Family Resources Survey show that around 12.2 million women of working age are now accumulating the state second pension, compared to 13.4 million men.

Anne Campbell: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that being in work is absolutely crucial to future pensions provision? Does he further agree that scrapping the new deal for lone parents, which has helped hundreds of lone parents in my constituency, will have a catastrophic effect on future pension provision for many women?

Malcolm Wicks: Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend's question reminds us that what we are doing in respect of employment policy and our success in moving back towards full employment will have a crucial impact on pensions for women as well as men. The impact of giving women the opportunity to have successful careers and of providing help with child care shows that those policies are as much pension policies as the formal pension policies that we tend to discuss at Question Time.

Anne McIntosh: What assessment has the Minister made of the recent TUC report, particularly on the implications for women who work part time and earn substantially less—22 per cent. less—than men? About 15 per cent. of the unskilled workers among the women work force are not part of an occupational pension scheme. What are the Government going to do for them?

Malcolm Wicks: That is one of the difficulties that we face, but I hope that the hon. Lady would acknowledge that the Government have done a good deal to enhance the status of the part-time worker, who is as important to a modern economy as the full-time worker. That is why we have given new rights to part-time members of the work force to be members of occupational pension schemes, which is a great step forward. As I said earlier, I am not complacent about these matters. We will consider the TUC report—I spoke at its conference—and we hope to move forward in the future.

Chris McCafferty: Does my hon. Friend agree with the Pensions Policy Institute, which has said that that the average woman will lose out under the Conservatives' proposed policy? Can he comment on what the effect on women pensioners would be of the Tory party's plans to abolish the second state pension?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not the Minister's responsibility.

Helen Jackson: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important for every individual, male and female, to think about making a contribution to their income in retirement throughout their working lives? Will he ensure that the state second pension has the flexibility necessary to make it easy for women in part-time jobs and in a variety of jobs through their working lives to build up a contributory pension that is tailored to their needs?

Malcolm Wicks: We need to recognise that much of the useful work or activity in society takes place outside the formal labour market. The history of pension policy since the second world war is Governments—I must point out that that means Labour Governments—recognising that caring for children is important and should be credited into a basic state pension. This Labour Government have recognised that the balance of care is almost shifting towards caring for elderly relatives and that is why we are crediting that into the new state second pension. Progress has been made, and that will show up in the average basic state pensions that people retire on in the middle decades of this century. However, we need to do more.

Child Support Agency

David Heath: If he will make a statement on the operation of IT systems in the Child Support Agency.

Alan Johnson: We have acknowledged problems with the CS2 IT system. The agency is working with EDS to resolve those problems. Work to stabilise the system is under way and that has already brought about improvements. We expect the remedial work to be complete in spring 2005.
	We want people who are still on the old scheme to experience the advantages of the reforms as soon as possible, but we are determined not to repeat the mistakes of 1993 when the old scheme was brought in far too quickly.

David Heath: The Government's record in procuring, and suppliers such as EDS in supplying, major IT schemes is appalling, so we are all looking forward to the ID scheme system. I understand what the Secretary of State is saying about stocktaking before moving to a clear timetable for migration, but does he believe that his Department is in any way vulnerable to legal challenge by those who are put at a financial disadvantage compared with others in exactly the same circumstances who are on the new scheme? Does he propose to do anything about that inequity or is the game plan simply to wait for those children to grow up and the problem to solve itself?

Alan Johnson: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was able to join us last week for the interesting debate on that issue on estimates day, opened by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Sir Archy Kirkwood). First, there is no legal liability. The two systems are in separate legislation, so there is no legal redress against the Government for not being transferred from system 1 to system 2. Secondly, system 1 has advantages, as I pointed out in the debate. If the parent with care—usually a woman—gets a job, she qualifies for £5 a week arrears, which is £1,000, as opposed to the £10 disregard under system 2. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) reminds me of a point that I did not pick up in that debate, which is the suggestion that somehow we want to sit around until the kids on the original system grow up—that might be something that we could recommend to some Opposition Members—and let the problem wither on the vine. That suggestion is beneath the Liberal Democrats—

Dennis Skinner: Nothing is beneath them.

Alan Johnson: I am told that nothing is beneath them. I assure hon. Members, especially the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, who did not raise this issue but has a close interest in it, that nothing could be further from our thoughts. We want people to swap to CS2. It had the support of the whole House, not least because it is simpler and gives the £10 disregard, and we are determined to switch to it as quickly as possible, commensurate with avoiding the problems that we have faced previously. I am happy to give that assurance on record to the House.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: Nevertheless, does not my right hon. Friend see a slight irony in the fact that, at a time when many DWP employees in my constituency are being forcibly removed from Crewe to Chester, adding an hour and a half to their working day, only the availability of civil servants who could continue the payment of benefits by writing everything out by hand saved my constituents from considerable inconvenience?

Alan Johnson: I think that my hon. Friend is talking about the problem we experienced a couple of weeks ago when 80 per cent. of our desktop computers closed down. Although that did not affect benefit recipients, because the mainframe computers were unaffected, it affected our staff, who had to work really hard to ensure that more damage was not done. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that EDS has told us that it was responsible for what happened a couple of weeks ago. The company has given us a report on how it happened and I have shared that with the Opposition. I record my thanks to our staff for ensuring that what could have made a much more profound difference to our customers did not, and that we actually recovered the situation.

Tim Boswell: The Secretary of State will recall that for the past couple of years I have been away shadowing different portfolios. I left with the memory in my ears of his predecessors, the right hon. Members for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) and for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith), saying that there was no intention to move the CSA system until the thing was working properly, that it would be robust and that until it was robust it would not be introduced for new cases, let alone for existing ones. The House will have noticed that the present Secretary of State is saying exactly the same thing and giving a timetable of spring next year—I wonder why.
	What will the Secretary of State say to the many thousands of cases—that means people—who are suffering because their assessments have been frozen in the present system? Are they not reasonable in concluding that this is all talk? They want a bit of action and accountability.

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman has been shadowing other Ministers, including me in a previous life; it is good to have Johnson and Boswell reunited once again across the Dispatch Box.
	The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about previous statements. As we said in the debate last week, no Government are blameless on those IT failures. He would be the last person to suggest that the Government of whom he was a distinguished member—in the Department of Trade and Industry—did not run into similar problems. One has only to say the word "Horizon" to make them come over all pale and quivering. Previous Secretaries of State twice put off the introduction of CS2. It was due to be implemented in—I think—October 2001. It was put back by my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central and put back again by my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East. As we said in the debate, there was not exactly a rush to get CS2 started; in fact, there were serious concerns. In the end, we were assured that the system would work well and properly, but it did not and we are still feeling the effects.
	Finally, I did not say that we would go live in spring next year. In the debate last week, I said that spring 2005—April 2005, to be precise—is when the last piece of kit will be put in by EDS, which should rectify the horrendous problems that our staff have been facing with that particular system.

Lone Parent Benefits

Harry Barnes: What assessment he has made of the likely impact on the living standards of lone parents of the continuation of current uprating policies for income support and child tax credit by 2010.

Chris Pond: Since 1997, incomes for lone parents in receipt of benefit have risen by more than prices or the cost of living. In April 2005, the child allowance rate in income support for a child up to 11 years old will have been increased by 127 per cent. since 1997. Child rates in income support and jobseeker's allowance are also being increased above inflation in April 2005 in line with child tax credit upratings.

Harry Barnes: The Government are committed to increasing the child element of child tax credit in line with earnings, but will not that be pulled down in future where lone parents are dependent on income support? The rate is below that of the retail prices index and is based on the Rossi index, which excludes housing, so by 2010 there may be problems.

Chris Pond: As I have already said, the child rates in income support are also being increased above inflation. The living standards of lone parents and their children depend not only on the level of benefit or, indeed, tax credit but on our ability to help those parents into work. In deciding the increases in the different elements of both income support and tax credits we must find a way of maximising our ability to meet the target of halving, then eliminating, child poverty, and also helping lone parents and others into work. That is sometimes a difficult balance.

New Deal for Lone Parents

Jim Cunningham: What assessment he has made of the impact of the new deal for lone parents.

Jane Kennedy: The success of the new deal for lone parents has been a major contributory factor in the increase in lone parent employment in every region, the reduction in the number of children in workless households and the reduction in child poverty. My hon. Friend might like to know that in Coventry, South, 840 lone parents have participated in the new deal for lone parents, 400 of whom have found work.

Jim Cunningham: I thank my right hon. Friend for her answer. Clearly, the new deal for lone parents is working, but how many trained personal advisers are employed in the scheme?

Jane Kennedy: I do not have the figures to hand, but I can find them and write to my hon. Friend after questions and once I have had a chance to look at Hansard. However, he may be interested to hear about one lone parent who became involved in the new deal through her work-focused interview. She had previously worked in a factory but, after some discussion, she decided that she was not keen to go back to that employment. Lacking formal qualifications and self-confidence, she felt that there was very little that she could do but, after her experience on the new deal, she has now gained qualifications in literacy and numeracy that have enabled her to accept work as a receptionist.

Desmond Swayne: Question no. 13, Mr. Speaker.

Means Testing

Desmond Swayne: What plans he has to reduce the numbers of pensioners on means-tested benefits.

Malcolm Wicks: The hon. Gentleman's question is about the future of means testing, but we make no apology for the pension credit, given the fact that, as we heard earlier, it focuses extra resources on people without occupational pensions or a full basic state pension. Such people are often in their 80s, and two thirds of pension credit recipients are women. In future, we hope that people can retire on incomes from occupational pensions, savings and state pensions that would put most of them far above means-tested levels.

Desmond Swayne: I apologise, Mr. Speaker. I believe that I said "Question no. 13", but I meant to say "Question no. 15". Clearly, however, the answer was the same.
	Does the Minister acknowledge that, notwithstanding the Government's efforts to improve take-up, 1.5 million people entitled to pension credit are still not receiving it? Would it not be better to allow the state pension to rise by linking it to the level of earnings, as the number of people requiring means-tested benefits would fall accordingly?

Malcolm Wicks: Despite what the hon. Gentleman said, he got the number wrong and I got it right, which will be the theme of our little dialogue. If we put all our resources into raising the basic state pension in line with earnings, over time it would cost a considerable amount. In the immediate period—and I think that that is the policy of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition—it would be better news for men than for women, and for people on the full basic state pension. It would be poorer news for people on only a partial basic state pension, which is why we are focusing our attention on pension credit.
	I do not quite understand what the hon. Gentleman's policies are. I enjoy tramping through the New Forest, and often come across wild creatures, ponies and deer. I have never met him there, but no doubt I shall do so at some stage. Neither have I met all the 3,615—I repeat, 3,615—pensioner households in New Forest, West who receive pension credit. The hon. Gentleman probably knows them all by name, but when he meets them does he tell them that they are victims of a terrible extension—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Carers

Bill O'Brien: If he will make a statement on the support given by his Department to elderly people caring for older members of the family.

Maria Eagle: The Government want all pensioners to have a decent and secure income in retirement and to share fairly in the rising prosperity of the nation. Our first priority was to tackle poverty among pensioners. That is why we introduced pension credit, which is providing over £40 a week on average to more than 3 million people and has helped move 1.8 million pensioners out of poverty. We have also changed the rules for carer's allowance so that older carers can claim it and can have access to the additional amount for carers, worth an extra £25.55 a week, paid with pension credit, housing benefit and council tax benefit.

Bill O'Brien: An ever-increasing number of elderly people are looking after elderly relatives or other elderly people. When they reach a certain age, their benefit can drop, which creates problems for the carer and the person being cared for. If we are to encourage members of the family to look after their parents and relatives, we must ensure that there is no reduction in their income. Some of these people also experience difficulties in receiving attendance allowance. Will my hon. Friend make sure that that situation is not allowed to develop, and will she introduce practices to ensure that people receive the proper reward for looking after elderly people?

Maria Eagle: To be brief, I think my hon. Friend is referring to the way the overlapping benefit rule operates between carer's allowance and state pension. People's income is never reduced, but when those who qualify for carer's allowance get to state retirement age and start receiving their state pension, they cannot receive both, because technically those two benefits overlap. Nobody's income should go down, even though the overlapping benefit rule applies to carer's allowance and the state pension. There is the carer's premium in the income-related benefits—it is the additional amount in pension credit—which gives poorer pensioners an extra £25.55 a week, so it is still worth claiming carer's allowance if the person being cared for is in receipt of attendance allowance.

Points of Order

Julian Brazier: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Have you received notice of the parliamentary statement that has been widely trailed in the media today on huge cuts in the Territorial Army, at a time when we have hundreds of territorials serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they represent the only framework for expansion that the country has for its very small Regular Army? Those cuts are viewed with considerable concern in the country.

Mark Francois: Further to that point of order—

Mr. Speaker: Let me answer the point of order. I have had no notice. The Minister would normally notify me in the morning, and there has been no notice.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should like to have given you notice of the point of order. My constituent, Captain Strong, has been unable to get a British passport because he has not been in this country for five years, as he has been serving valiantly in Her Majesty's armed forces abroad. I tabled a question on the subject to the Home Office in good time before the Queen's Speech. The Home Office avoided answering the question because of the new rule that Departments are not obliged to answer questions that fall at the end of a Session. I retabled the question on 29 November—a fortnight ago—and it has still not been answered. I am tabling a pursuant question today. How long can the Home Office go on avoiding answering this difficult question?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has followed the proper procedure for trying to get answers out of Ministers, which is to ask the question twice. I will look into the matter. Hon. Members should have questions answered in a reasonable time.

Mark Francois: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), I have checked the Order Paper and we do not, unfortunately, have Defence questions before the House rises for the Christmas recess. Given the reports that are circulating in the press and causing considerable uncertainty in the Territorial community, it would be pernicious if the TA were punished for the chaos that exists in the Ministry of Defence. Is there anything you can do to bring a Minister to the Dispatch Box to clarify the matter and, hopefully, to save the Territorial Army from what appears to be in prospect?

Mr. Speaker: Before we break up, we have the Christmas Adjournment debate. On that day, hon. Members may bring up any subject they wish. That is an opportunity, and there are others: the hon. Gentleman could table a written question and also, perhaps, try for an Adjournment debate.

John Bercow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance. As you know, we are about to have an important debate in Opposition time on the crucial issue of school discipline, and it is disappointing, to put it no more strongly, that the Secretary of State does not appear to have the self-discipline to be present for the debate. I have just been advised by the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg), in response to a sedentary question from me, that he does not know where his boss is. Is it in order that the Secretary of State should show such abject contempt for the House as to fail even to turn up to debate an issue of this importance? It sets a very bad precedent.

Mr. Speaker: I do not know why the hon. Gentleman is disappointed. I am not disappointed, and the Under-Secretary is here, so we can look forward to a good day.

BILL PRESENTED

Child Benefit

Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by Mr. Secretary Clarke, Mr. Paul Boateng, Mr. Secretary Johnson, Dawn Primarolo, Mr. Stephen Timms and John Healey, presented, under Standing Order No. 50 (Procedure upon bills whose main object is to create a charge upon the public revenue), a Bill to make provision for and in connection with altering the descriptions of persons in respect of whom a person may be entitled to child benefit: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 13].

Opposition Day
	 — 
	[1st Allotted Day]

School Discipline

Mr. Speaker: I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Tim Collins: I beg to move,
	That this House notes that the vast majority of pupils are well behaved and eager to learn but is concerned that their ability to do so is increasingly undermined by a disruptive minority; regrets the fact that an assault takes place on a teacher every seven minutes, as reported by teaching unions; further notes that incidents involving poor behaviour, intimidation, violence, guns and drugs in schools are all increasing; deplores the announcement by the Government that it will force every state school, irrespective of the wishes of its head teacher, to take a share of pupils with disruptive or even violent backgrounds; believes that head teachers should be given, unequivocally, the final say on expulsions by abolishing independent appeals panels; calls for a six fold increase in the number of places to be provided for high quality, intensive but separate education of those whose behavioural difficulties make them unsuitable for inclusion in mainstream schools; is confident that the ability of teachers to exercise discipline would be greatly enhanced by protecting them from the fear of false allegations of abuse, and urges swift legislation to guarantee anonymity for teachers facing accusations at least up to the point where a formal criminal charge is brought; recognises that teachers, parents and pupils all, overwhelmingly, want to see stronger action on discipline and have the right to expect it; and consequently, further believes that it is time for the rights of the majority of pupils, parents and teachers to be given greater weight.
	There can be few more important subjects than the topic before the House today, and therefore I should like to add my expression of sorrow to those that have already been voiced at the absence of the Secretary of State today.
	What is the essential pre-requisite for high-quality education? Getting resources, teachers, training, the curriculum, buildings and facilities right are all vital, but none can have effect unless learning can take place in a disciplined environment. As the Opposition motion makes clear, the vast majority of pupils are well behaved and eager to learn. Many schools have few, if any, serious discipline problems. Unfortunately, however, there are plenty that do.
	The Guardian reported last year that 31 per cent. of teachers leaving the profession cite poor pupil behaviour as the reason. The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers reports that a teacher is assaulted every seven minutes in one of our schools. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has recommended that metal detectors should be installed outside schools, a suggestion that it is predicted the Home Secretary will adopt on Wednesday. What was once a symbol of social decay confined to the worst excesses of inner-city America could soon become a daily part of life for many children in this country.
	The Times Educational Supplement in August this year reported that the first termly exclusions survey of local education authorities by the Office for National Statistics showed that in just one term in 2003 no fewer than 17,424 pupils were suspended for violent behaviour. Sometimes these acts of violence can be genuinely horrific.
	We think of Luke Walmsley, the 14-year-old stabbed to death in one of our schools a year ago, whose parents, with great courage, have come to London today to lobby for changes in the laws concerning knives. We think of the 15-year-old who died at school only last month, apparently after a fight with a pupil; of the 13-year-old left drenched in blood after being stabbed at her desk at school, also last month; of the pupil who was shot in the head at school in October; of the 12-year-old rushed to hospital after being stabbed on a flight of stairs at a school in September. Those may be the most extreme and shocking cases, but they are by no means entirely unrepresentative.
	The ONS survey showed that in just one term in 2003, there were 288 permanent exclusions and 4,000 temporary ones for physical assaults on an adult, with a further 336 permanent and 12,800 temporary exclusions for assaults on fellow pupils.

Nigel Evans: My hon. Friend has mentioned a number of cases at one end of the scale, but would he also agree that at the other end of the scale pupils bullying pupils should also be taken extremely seriously, and where it is deemed sufficiently serious, pupils should also be excluded if they persist in bullying other pupils?

Tim Collins: I agree with my hon. Friend, who has raised a serious problem. He is right to say that head teachers must have the unlimited right to exclude pupils and that they should be encouraged to exclude pupils who engage in organised, systematic bullying.

Phyllis Starkey: The hon. Gentleman has just said that head teachers should be given absolute authority to exclude pupils. If one head teacher has a low threshold for exclusion and is allowed to exercise that right untrammelled, they can offload every child who exhibits any problems on to other secondary schools in the area.

Tim Collins: The hon. Lady has come to the heart of one of the profound differences between her party and mine. Her comment evidences a lack of trust in the professionals. We believe that if head teachers are allowed to take those decisions, they will not abuse that right and will use exclusion as a last resort, not a first resort. We have many of the problems that face us today precisely because the Government do not trust head teachers to take those decisions.

Rob Marris: The hon. Gentleman has put his name to the motion, which states that
	"head teachers should be given, unequivocally, the final say on expulsions by abolishing independent appeals panels".
	When we discussed changes to asylum and immigration policy, the Conservative party rightly opposed getting rid of all the levels of appeal, so why is he suggesting getting rid of a level of appeal for schools? Under that policy, such matters would end up in the courts rather than with the local education authority, which would make the situation worse.

Tim Collins: I invite the hon. Gentleman to consider whether the independent judgment of head teachers should be trusted in a way in which employees of the present Home Office should not.
	The Times Educational Supplement reported that teaching unions thought that the figures might be underestimates, since schools may have failed to report the full figures for fear of being labelled "failing". In other words, the numbers involved in acts of violence may be greater than the statistics that I quoted earlier. The Government may say that they have set a target to reduce permanent exclusions, which have been reduced by some 3,000 since 1997. However, given the steady rise in incidents of violence and indiscipline in schools and the number of teachers who cite poor behaviour as a major contributor to their stress, it cannot be argued that exclusions are falling because behaviour is improving. On the contrary, the Government have introduced a target to reduce the number of punishments handed out, rather than the number of offences committed. It is like the Home Office aiming to reduce the number of arrests rather than the number of crimes.
	That is simply the wrong way to go about things. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and many senior members of the Government have rightly discussed the need to implement zero-tolerance policies to tackle yobbishness among young people. They have spoken persuasively about the way in which small acts of rule infringement escalate into far more serious issues if society sends out the message that it either does not care about those rules or is incapable of enforcing them, and they are entirely right. What is strange, however, is to take the view that zero tolerance is the right approach towards young people out on the street, but the wrong approach when they are in school. Indeed, zero tolerance is arguably more important in schools, given that by definition those who are shaped by the prevailing attitude towards rules are at the most impressionable stages of their lives.
	The first part of the distinctive Conservative approach towards restoring discipline is to restore to heads the absolute and final authority to expel pupils whose poor behaviour makes them unfit to be part of that community. There should be no targets for the number of exclusions and no pressure, implicit or explicit, to go for a softer option. We do not believe that heads would use expulsion as anything other than a last resort, but if they need to use it, they must be able to use it without fear or favour.

Chris Bryant: If the hon. Gentleman's proposal were to come to pass, would the number of exclusions in England increase or decrease, and by how much?

Tim Collins: Certainly in the short term, I would expect the number of exclusions to increase, which is why—I shall come on to this point later in my remarks—we have allocated significant public spending to multiply by six the number of places in what the Government currently call pupil referral units, which we would call "turnaround schools". We take the view that the subject is serious and that head teachers should be given greater freedom. If that means that more are excluded, more provision needs to be made for them.
	A recent poll showed that 74 per cent. of the public—

Patrick McLoughlin: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Tim Collins: If I may just finish this point, I will by all means give way. My hon. Friend may be anticipating me, but I shall explain why he and I should be confident that we have the public on our side on this.
	A recent poll shows that 74 per cent. of the public and 79 per cent. of teachers agree with us that independent appeals panels should be abolished and should lose the powers granted them by the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 to overrule heads and force them to take back disruptive pupils.

Patrick McLoughlin: My hon. Friend referred to the expectation that exclusions may increase in the short term once this policy has been put into effect. Does not he agree that although that may be the case in the short term, in the longer term parents and pupils will be given the message that if children do not behave, they will be removed from school, which will mean that fewer people are referred to turnaround schools?

Tim Collins: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, who is, after all, making precisely the point that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and others make when they advocate zero tolerance in other contexts—namely, that securing more arrests, more convictions and possibly more people being sent to prison in the short term sends a clear signal that society will take rule-breaking and lawbreaking seriously, which results in better behaviour and less crime in the long term. In the context of schools, the zero-tolerance approach would mean that in the medium to long term there would be fewer disciplinary offences. As my hon. Friend will agree, one cannot take the view that there are an acceptable number of people breaking the rules. We will deal with those people severely to ensure that we reduce the incidence of indiscipline over the medium to long term.
	Several of us were intrigued by various parts of the Government's amendment, particularly the section—for which, no doubt, Labour Members will be invited to vote this evening—that says that the House supports
	"the Government's reform of exclusions to strengthen the power of headteachers".
	That is an interesting interpretation of the Government's record since 1997, given that it was they who introduced the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which gave independent appeals panels the power to overrule head teachers and to force them to take back disruptive pupils. That did not strengthen the power of head teachers—it removed and undermined it. Indeed, there has been at least one case in which an appeals panel forced a school to take back a pupil who had violently attacked a teacher. It is impossible to imagine a scenario that is more likely to demonstrate the impotence of authority or to lead to further, ever more severe, acts of indiscipline. Conservatives will therefore scrap those panels outright; I do not believe that many teachers will mourn their passing.

Rob Marris: The Government amendment goes on to say that the House
	"deplores attempts to destroy that system, which would expose headteachers to litigation".
	If the independent appeals panels were abolished, head teachers would face being taken to court under judicial review. That is the very power that his party rightly said should not be removed in asylum and immigration cases, and I am glad to say that the Government backed off on that. Is he saying unequivocally, to use the word in his motion, that judicial review would not even be allowed in these cases and that the decision of the head teacher would be final, with no legal redress whatsoever?

Tim Collins: Of course, there is a theoretical possibility of judicial review, in common with all other decisions taken by public bodies. However, we intend to take steps that will make it extremely unlikely that parents will choose to take that route. Parents who choose to sue schools will not have access to legal aid or to no win, no fee arrangements. It will take only one or two cases to go against parents, so that they have to face the entirety of the costs—not only their own but of the school in defending itself—for them to realise that they do not wish to follow that procedure. That will give heads an enormously strengthened role.
	Of course, our approach of giving head teachers the final say and encouraging zero-tolerance policies is in even starker contrast with the latest evolution in Government policy. The Secretary of State announced last month that he intends to require every state school, irrespective of the wishes of its head or governors, to take its share of pupils with a disruptive, or even violent past. That means that even schools that were oases of calm and good order until now might not be so in future.
	We believe that we are considering a fundamental issue of principle: do we take the view that violence and disruptive behaviour is such an ingrained and unshakeable factor in school life that it is only fair to spread the misery around evenly; or do we believe that it is not inevitable, acceptable or tolerable, and that heads who are determined to stamp it out completely in their schools deserve not to be undermined or second-guessed but given full backing?
	Of course, a strategy of exclusion alone cannot be the be-all and end-all of enforcing discipline. At least two other elements are needed. First, early intervention to help where possible avoids problems later in life. That will not work in every case but it is important to try, and the Government are to be commended for their commitment to early-years education. Conservatives will shortly set out how we hope to build on that.
	Secondly, those who are excluded cannot simply be left to their own devices. Half of those sent to pupil referral units spend less than 20 hours a week there. Both the quantity and quality of the provision need to improve. The number of places at PRUs is insufficient and, therefore, the Leader of the Opposition and I recently announced that the next Conservative Government will make spending on separate specialist centres for excluded pupils—turn-around schools—our top spending priority. We will allocate at least £200 million extra a year to it. That sum could fund a sixfold increase in the number of places, or a smaller increase in the number of places but more investment per pupil.
	It is in the interests of everyone who is involved in education—teachers, parents and pupils alike—for the issue of disruptive pupils to be tackled vigorously and for the rights of the 29 pupils out of 30 who wish to learn to be given higher priority than the one in the 30 who wishes to disrupt.

Stephen Twigg: The hon. Gentleman repeats the motion's words about a sixfold increase in the number of places. There are currently 13,000 places in pupil referral units. Does the Conservative party propose that we should have 78,000 places in such units instead? If so, the cost would be considerably higher than £200 million. It would be at least £500 million and probably more.

Tim Collins: The Under-Secretary cites a different figure from that previously published by the Government, on which we based our calculation of an increase from 4,000 to 24,000 pupils. The figure of £200 million is the sum that we have available for spending. Even on the figures that the Under-Secretary cited, it would provide for a substantial increase in places. We will review the figure, for which I have received the agreement of the shadow Chancellor. It could be reviewed upwards, but not downwards in school spending. It would be a substantial increase on any basis.

David Rendel: If the hon. Gentleman wants an increase in specialist schools for those who are having difficulties emotionally and behaviourally, why is the Tory county council in Dorset currently planning to close Penwithen school, which it had previously described as a centre of excellence?

Tim Collins: It is always amusing to be challenged by a Liberal Democrat about consistency and policy. I shall not go further.
	I have one other important policy matter, which is directly relevant to discipline, to discuss this afternoon. It is the sensitive issue of how best to balance the competing rights and interests of those involved when an allegation is made that a teacher has abused a pupil in his or her care.
	The issue was brought to life for me when a constituent, who has given permission for me to raise his case today, came to see me at an advice surgery. David Sowerbutts is a retired head teacher. He had a blemish-free 28-year career. His life was shattered after a woman, now in her 30s, claimed that he had assaulted her when he was a deputy head teacher in the 1970s.
	When the case came to court, clear evidence was brought forward to clear Mr Sowerbutts, and the case was comprehensively thrown out. However, in the meantime, my constituent was branded a paedophile, spat at in the street, had his home vandalised and, worst of all, received a series of terrifying death threat calls telling him every day for a week to kill himself or get ready to be murdered.
	My constituent is now trying to put his life back together. Sadly, however, that option is not open to the family of Alastair Wilbee, a head teacher on the Isle of Wight who hanged himself after being accused of sexually abusing a boy. The coroner in that case called for legislation to grant the same statutory right to anonymity for teachers accused of abuse that the law already gives to children making such an accusation.
	The same call was made as recently as last Friday by Christopher Ifould, a former deputy head, who was cleared unanimously by a jury after being tried on a charge of sexually assaulting a pupil. I shall quote his words, which appeared in last Saturday's Daily Mail, and other papers. He said:
	"Nobody should have to go through what I and my family, friends and colleagues have endured. Teachers are increasingly vulnerable to false and malicious allegations. It is all too easy for disgruntled pupils, and those in pursuit of compensation, to make false allegations. The scales have tipped too far in favour of complainants."
	He went on:
	"More must be done to protect the reputations of good teachers. In particular, I call upon the Government to protect the anonymity of teachers accused of abuse".
	I could quote many more such examples.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. I happen to believe that a similar argument could be made in regard to the youth service, in which exactly the same problems can arise in relation to informal teaching arrangements. However, everyone in a community such as the one that I represent would know that an allegation had been made, whether or not it had appeared in the newspapers, because that is the nature of our community. How would the hon. Gentleman deal with that problem?

Tim Collins: Of course, the hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that no law can deliver perfection, but a law of this nature could make matters better than they are at the moment. Teachers and their union representatives are emphatic that legislation would help. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it would not solve every aspect of the problem; no law ever can. But it would make things better, and, for that reason, it is legitimate for the House to consider the wishes of teachers on this matter.

John Bercow: I congratulate my hon. Friend on demonstrating—if demonstration were needed—that we are committed to the reintroduction into education not of the three R's, but of the six R's: reading, writing, arithmetic, right, wrong, and respect for legitimate authority in the classroom. Does he agree, however, that if we are to ensure that such measures are practically effective and not weakened or thwarted in Government, it will be necessary to act against that consistent and inveterate clique of left-wing officials in the Department for Education and Skills whose activities have done too much damage to the life chances of too many state school pupils for far too long?

Tim Collins: I can certainly tell my hon. Friend that it is the intention of the next Conservative Government to free our schools from political interference, from left or right, by making it possible for them to take many more decisions for themselves and not be subject to interference from officials of whatever political orientation.
	I could have quoted many more examples of the difficulties being experienced by teachers facing accusations of abuse. Ninety per cent. of those accused are never formally charged with an offence, and most of those who are so charged are subsequently acquitted. Indeed, according to figures from the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, only 69 of the 1,782 accusations of abuse made against members of that union in the past decade resulted in a conviction. In the meantime, however, many such teachers go through what they describe as a period of pure personal and professional hell so traumatic that many who are accused never go back to teaching, even though their name is subsequently entirely cleared. That is why the teaching unions have called for a statutory right of anonymity for teachers. The Conservatives believe that that call is reasonable, and we back it.
	The link to discipline is also clear. As one teacher put it to me, "How can I enforce discipline in a classroom if I know that if I antagonise any one of the pupils, and they choose to use the word 'abuse', my entire personal and professional life could be over?" That is why anonymity is important.
	Let us be clear about what this does and does not involve. No one is calling for a return to the past, when allegations of abuse were simply ignored or brushed aside. Teachers are not asking for immunity from prosecution or investigation, or even that they should not be suspended if a credible allegation is made. On the contrary, all such claims should be thoroughly investigated. However, teachers are very understandably of the view that they are treated now as though they are guilty until proven innocent, when it should be the reverse. The pendulum has swung too far. No doubt in past children's complaints were not given sufficient weight. Today, it is the right of teachers to basic justice, protection from false or malicious allegations and the presumption of innocence that needs to be given more weight.
	In fairness, the Government have said that they recognise that there is a real problem with the current situation. Indeed, they spent several months earlier this year consulting and considering what to do. Unfortunately, their final conclusions have been greeted with some disappointment. I accept that the Government will seek to speed up the time scale for investigations and trials and that they have secured guidelines from the Association of Chief Police Officers, and reached a voluntary agreement with the media, to limit the publication of the names of teachers in such circumstances. Those measures will undoubtedly improve matters and thus are welcome, but the police are already not supposed to provide such names during an investigation and the press have long undertaken to be responsible, yet names of teachers still keep being reported.
	Those measures do not add up to what is being sought—the same legal right to anonymity for the accused teacher as for his or her accuser. So, let me make this offer across the Dispatch Box: should the Government choose to introduce a short Bill—it would need to be of no more than one or two clauses—simply to cover this point, the Opposition undertake to help to give it swift passage through both Houses of Parliament. Even in the short period before the expected election, such a Bill would have time to get on to the statute book. However, should Ministers choose to decline this offer, Conservatives undertake to include such a measure in the teacher protection Bill, which we are pledged to introduce in our first Queen's Speech.

Rob Marris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Collins: I have given way twice to the hon. Gentleman, so, if he will forgive me, I shall make progress.
	This morning, on Radio 4's "Today" programme, a teacher named Richard Anderson appeared. He is the teacher whose case has been widely publicised after huge numbers of present and past pupils backed him when he was suspended after a bag he threw towards a disruptive pupil hit that child. Mr. Anderson said this morning:
	"There is a detailed and specific child protection act but there is nothing in place for teachers. The teachers do need a charter of their own . . . that protects teachers just as much as children.
	There are increased pressures on teachers and they are finding it very difficult to survive with so few sanctions at their disposal."
	That teacher is right. Teaching unions are right. Discipline matters, so protecting teachers matters. If the Government will not take action to do that before the election, Conservatives in office will do so after it.

Stephen Twigg: I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	"welcomes the high priority the Government gives to improving behaviour and discipline in schools; supports Government measures to promote positive behaviour by empowering headteachers to deal with badly behaved pupils; celebrates the success that is evident, including attendance being at its highest ever level and Ofsted reporting behaviour satisfactory or better in 99 per cent, of primary schools and 95 per cent, of secondary schools; affirms the Government's commitment to tackle problems that remain; further supports the Government's reform of exclusions to strengthen the power of headteachers; deplores attempts to destroy that system, which would expose headteachers to litigation; welcomes the fact that headteachers, local education authorities and staff are endorsing Government plans for Foundation Partnerships which help schools co-operate to put pupils back on the right track; notes that capacity of pupil referral units has almost doubled under this Government to 13,000 places; considers that to multiply this capacity by six would not represent cost-effective spending on behaviour; deplores the suggestion that privatised borstals are the answer to every problem; endorses the action that the Government is taking to keep drugs and knives out of schools; further endorses the Government's drive to ensure that parents play their part in ensuring that children attend school regularly and behave well; further supports the Government's reforms for dealing with allegations against teachers swiftly and fairly; and agrees with the Government that no pupil has the right to disrupt the education of others and that every pupil, not just the few, should have the opportunity to succeed in life and to contribute."
	We take the issue of behaviour and discipline in schools extremely seriously. For that reason, I very much welcome today's opportunity to set out the progress that we are making and the challenges that we continue to face. Discipline in schools matters for many of the reasons that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) set out. It matters for obvious educational reasons in the school; it matters because ill-discipline and bullying can affect the confidence and self-esteem of children, and their safety; and it matters because improving behaviour and tackling ill-discipline in schools will reduce criminal and antisocial behaviour later on, with a wide community benefit.
	That is why we have invested significantly in improving behaviour, with a programme over the last three years of £470 million to improve behaviour both universally and through targeted support for schools, where the challenges are at their greatest. It is why we believe that every child has the right to the best possible education, the right to enjoy their learning in a positive environment, the right to achieve, and the right to make the very best of their life—every child, not just the few.
	I shall address the points raised in the motion in turn. In a sense, the motion starts with the areas of consensus:
	"That this House notes that the vast majority of pupils are well-behaved and eager to learn but is concerned that their ability to do so is increasingly undermined by a disruptive minority".
	Of course I agree that the vast majority of pupils are well behaved and eager to learn. The vast majority of learners behave well almost all the time. They benefit from engaging teaching, and from the encouragement and support that they get from teachers and other members of our staff. They also benefit from this Government's massive investment in support for positive behaviour.
	When I go to schools and meet pupils, I am impressed with what I see, as, I am sure, are Members in all parts of the House. Last month, I had the opportunity to attend the Diana awards, at which I met a young woman who had set up a bereavement counselling service in her school, and a young man who is leading the anti-bullying peer support network in his school. More recently, I went to Deptford Green school in south London, where I met pupils involved in the school council, which is ensuring that the voice of pupils is properly heard at all levels within the school.

Phyllis Starkey: Does my hon. Friend accept that children are often led to become disruptive because they are having extreme difficulty in coping with the teaching in the classroom? In those circumstances, investment in classroom assistants or support mechanisms for those children is a more useful tactic than immediately excluding them from school and further disrupting their education before they are allocated to another school.

Stephen Twigg: I thank my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right. The investment in classroom assistants and other adults working in schools—I shall refer later to the role of learning mentors—plays a vital part in enabling schools to promote the very best behaviour.
	We must, however, accept that there is a disruptive minority, as the motion correctly states. A central plank of our policy is to tackle disruption and to promote good behaviour. Contrary to what the motion says, there are some signs that behaviour overall is improving: the 25 per cent. reduction in exclusions since 1997 is something to be proud of. If we examine the evidence from Ofsted, we see that behaviour is regarded as satisfactory or better in well over 90 per cent. of schools inspected. Of course, we all know that good attendance reflects an improving climate of good discipline in schools.
	Truancy is a big challenge. We were disappointed by a small increase in unauthorised absence in the past year, but that was combined with a larger decrease in authorised absence. As a result, school attendance is at its highest since records began. When we came to power in 1997, school attendance stood at 92.77 per cent. The latest figures, published provisionally in September, showed an increase to 93.43 per cent.—

John Bercow: Revolutionary.

Stephen Twigg: Expressed in percentage terms, it does not sound dramatic, but when expressed in terms of the number of pupils, I am sure that even the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) would accept that an additional 17,000 pupils in school each day this year, compared with the previous year, is to be celebrated. The fact that there are over 40,000 more pupils each day in school, compared with 1996–97, is real evidence of improvement, which I would hope that all parts of the House would celebrate.

Andrew Turner: Is the Minister using the aggregate figures for authorised and unauthorised absence, or merely those for unauthorised absence?

Stephen Twigg: I am using the aggregate figure for authorised and/or unauthorised absence. At the beginning, I acknowledged the weakness in my case by saying that, in the past year, unauthorised absence had marginally increased, although authorised absence had fallen much more dramatically than the overall figure showed. That resulted, as I said, in school attendance being the highest on record. Part of the reason for that shift is the fact that schools are increasingly reluctant to authorise certain forms of absence that they authorised in the past—for example, term-time holidays. We still have a long way to go on truancy, and I do not underestimate the challenge, but I think we can be positive about a 25 per cent. fall in exclusions, behaviour said to be satisfactory or better in well over 95 per cent. of schools inspected by Ofsted, and school attendance at its highest-ever level.

Mark Francois: The Minister obviously visits a number of schools. Indeed, we all do so, in our role as constituency Members. I have never yet met a head teacher who made the decision to exclude a pupil lightly, but I am sure the Minister would agree that a disruptive pupil takes up a disproportionate amount of the time of both classroom teacher and head. When will the Government start thinking about the 29 children in the class who suffer because of a disruptive pupil, instead of always seeking to defend the disruptive pupil to the disbenefit of all the well-behaved children?

Stephen Twigg: With respect, this Government think about all 30 pupils, but it is vital that we address the needs of those 29. I shall say something shortly about measures that we have taken and are taking, some of which are criticised in the Opposition motion.
	We are the first Government to operate national truancy sweeps. A record 146 local education authorities—almost all of them—recently participated in the latest round of sweeps, which ended on 3 December. Earlier sweeps have stopped more than 25,000 truants. In particular, truancy has been tackled successfully in schools supported by the behaviour improvement programme. The amount of time lost to truancy in those schools has fallen by an average of 63 days for each school. They are bucking the trend in that there has been both a fall in their authorised absence figures, matching what is happening in the country as a whole, and a fall—including in the past year—in their unauthorised absence figures.
	I believe that our drive to improve behaviour is earning respect. For example, we conduct regular stakeholder surveys. In the most recent, head teachers were asked to describe the pattern of behaviour: was it improving, worsening or staying about the same? The result showed a significant improvement in the optimism of head teachers, 41 per cent. of whom said that behaviour was improving. Three years ago the figure was 34 per cent. The number saying that behaviour was getting worse fell, albeit slightly, from 15 per cent. to 13 per cent. Although it is clearly not acceptable for 13 per cent. of heads to regard behaviour as worsening, I believe that, seen in the round, the figures show that the terms used in the motion cannot be justified.

Mark Francois: In the real world, how many head teachers does the Minister think would be willing to admit in a questionnaire that behaviour was getting worse at their own schools?

Stephen Twigg: In my experience of working with head teachers, they are never reluctant to talk about the challenging as well as the positive aspects—and quite right too. That is reflected in the response from the 13 per cent., and borne out by other surveys of head teachers.
	Many behaviour problems in schools have their origins in incidents of bullying. The Government have led an unprecedented drive against bullying. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, who has taken personal charge of the programme—including the establishment of the anti-bullying alliance and the anti-bullying charter, which has been endorsed by all the professional associations and by key voluntary sector organisations and children's charities. We believe that the recent anti-bullying week and the wider work of the alliance are critical to providing a real, concerted drive to give support and confidence to those who face bullying in our schools.

Phil Willis: I apologise to the Minister and to the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins), for not being here for the beginning of the debate.
	We support what the Minister is doing on bullying and we commend the Government for that, but Bullying Online, which for a decade has been at the vanguard of dealing with bullying in schools and is the most respected group in the country, is being denied access to the alliance because it will not sign a code of conduct that says that it must not criticise Government officials. Surely that is unacceptable. There should not be a gagging order on any organisation, certainly not a well respected organisation such as Bullying Online. That is bullying.

Stephen Twigg: I am happy to look into the hon. Gentleman's specific suggestion. I am acutely aware of Bullying Online's concern because I have received a considerable number of letters from colleagues on both sides of the House about it. We are putting substantial additional resources into supporting anti-bullying work, including that by a wide range of respected voluntary organisations. I am happy to look into his specific suggestion and to respond to him.

John Bercow: It is always a pleasure to joust with the Minister. If he will escape just for a moment from his statistical snowstorm, will he tell the House what objection ethically or intellectually he has to the idea that the ultimate arbiter of whether a child stays in the school or not should be the head teacher of that school?

Stephen Twigg: The hon. Gentleman anticipates the part of my speech that I will come to in a moment. I decided to structure my speech around the motion. The ultimate arbiter is the head teacher, but any system beyond that will have some right of appeal. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) emphasised the fact that, without an appeal panel system in place, there is the danger of an increase in litigation, with parents going to the courts. I will come to that when I address that part of the motion.

Phyllis Starkey: Does the Minister accept that, although many of us, as constituency MPs, would wish for the most part to support the head teachers of our various schools, parents in my constituency have approached me—not all of them had children in the state sector; one in particular complained about the private sector—because, apparently, head teachers have acted arbitrarily and the rights of pupils and their parents have been compromised. It is essential that we strike a balance. Although head teachers for the most part make the correct judgment, they are not infallible. They are not God.

Phil Willis: Some of us were.

Stephen Twigg: My hon. Friend makes her point powerfully. She is right. I will not enter into a debate about the God-like qualities of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). I shall move instead to the second part of the motion, which
	"regrets the fact that an assault takes place on a teacher every seven minutes, as reported by teaching unions".
	Clearly, any assault on a teacher is unacceptable and everything must be done to prevent that from happening and to ensure appropriate punishment if it does happen. The allegation is based on a 2002 survey by the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers. Of the 287 members who took part, 212 reported verbal abuse. Of course, no member of staff should be expected to suffer verbal abuse, but all of us in the House would accept that verbal abuse is not the same as physical assault. Indeed, Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said in response to the tragic death of David Sandham:
	"It must be remembered that schools place a high priority on maintaining high standards of pupil behaviour and that compared with the growing incidence of violence on the streets, they remain relatively safe havens of peace and security."
	It is incumbent on all of us to remind ourselves of that fact, which in no way lessens the tragedy if there is an assault on a teacher, be it physical or verbal. We must not be complacent.

Tim Collins: The Minister is right to say that it is important to give an accurate and balanced sense of what is going on, but he said that the NASUWT figures related to only 60 or 70 assaults on teachers—I think that that is what he implied—so would he not also put that in the context of the more recent statistics from the Office for National Statistics showing that in a single term in 2003 more than 4,000 pupils were excluded either temporarily or permanently for violent assaults on adults, almost all of them teachers? It is important to stress that side of it, too.

Stephen Twigg: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is a serious challenge that we must face together. I referred to the survey for the sole reason that it is the one that he has chosen to refer to in the motion. In no sense was I seeking to suggest that there is not a big challenge here. We must work both to ensure that schools and their head teachers are in a position to deal with these incidents when they happen and, more optimistically, to bring about a position in which they do not happen in the first place.
	That is one of the reasons why we have established the behaviour improvement programme, focusing on some of the schools that face the severest challenges, schools that are now often achieving against serious odds. I will not go into detail about some of the programme's provisions—extra learning mentors, learning support units, behaviour and education support teams, and police in schools—benefiting about 1,500 schools that face especially serious behaviour challenges and being extended to a further 500 next year.

John Pugh: Does the Minister acknowledge that where schools learn from best practice the need for exclusions goes dramatically down?

Stephen Twigg: Absolutely. That is the emerging evidence from the behaviour improvement programme, which is resulting not only in improved attendance but in a reduction in exclusions.
	The National Union of Teachers—we are all fond of quoting the teaching unions—says:
	"The biggest problem in schools is low level disruption and cheek, not physical violence."
	That is in some ways a more difficult challenge, which we seek to deal with through the behaviour improvement programme. In secondary schools and now in some primary schools we are offering materials and extra expert support to tackle the behaviour issues that schools themselves tell us are their top priority.
	Schools can deal with the great majority of behaviour and attendance problems themselves, through good teaching, good policies and procedures, and creating a positive ethos. Our key stage 3 and primary strategies are giving schools the tools to improve all those.
	The next part of the motion says that the House
	"further notes that incidents involving poor behaviour, intimidation, violence, guns and drugs in schools are all increasing".
	That is a sweeping statement, and the reality is more complex. I certainly recognise that there are some serious challenges and too many problems, and we need to take a very strong line on drugs, guns and knives in our schools, and of course heads need the powers to tackle them.
	The Offensive Weapons Act 1996 makes it a criminal offence to carry offensive weapons on school premises. It is a crime to carry an illegal knife, or any other offensive weapon, in a public place, including in a school. Any pupil can be arrested if found with an illegal knife in school. Police have powers to enter and search on reasonable suspicion. The Secretary of State in his speech last month to head teachers said that we are supporting the Home Office in its review of the age at which knives can be legally purchased.
	We are also working with the head teacher associations and others on the powers that heads have to undertake searches. We are encouraging local partnerships of heads, police and crime reduction partners to deal with issues about knives in their local   area. We have proposed a new power for head teachers to search pupils who refuse to turn out their pockets, where the head suspects that a knife is being carried.
	Any tragedy reminds us that schools need support to avoid such tragedies happening again. International research indicates that the most effective way of reducing the risk of such tragedies is to increase school security, and to help ensure a climate in schools in which pupils share information and act on it to prevent possible incidents of violence.
	We need to support schools with, for example, additional funds for security improvements. We are committed to backing the authority of head teachers when pupils' behaviour warrants exclusion. We have made it clear that heads can permanently exclude pupils who are very disruptive or violent, even where this is a first or "one-off" offence. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale referred to the wording of our amendment, which mentions the strengthening of guidance. We have changed the guidance for exclusion appeal panels to make it clear that an exclusion should not normally be overturned in a range of circumstances, including where there has been violence or the threat of violence. For less extreme offences, head teachers may exclude pupils for a fixed period or impose detention. We expect head teachers to follow the best available practice in promoting good behaviour.

Tim Collins: Is the Minister therefore saying that the Government should be given credit for amending regulations that they themselves introduced and subsequently found to be unworkable?

Stephen Twigg: Absolutely. I am always in favour of learning from our mistakes. If the Conservatives had done so once or twice when in government, they might be in a stronger position today.
	On violence, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale cited certain research referred to in the motion and I cited other research. A range of information is available on violence, particularly that suffered by teachers. Unfortunately, we do not have data covering the number of assaults on teachers and other staff, but we do have the Health and Safety Executive's figures on serious injuries to primary and secondary teachers in Great Britain caused by physical violence. In 1997–98, there were 119 such injuries. In 2000–01, that figure rose to 135, and it fell to 110 in 2001–02, the latest year for which we have fully verified HSE figures. That demonstrates that the number of such injuries is not necessarily increasing; however, we do face a very significant problem and challenge in this regard.
	In partnership with the teacher unions, the Department is running a project to identify best practice in schools on violence avoidance and conflict resolution. As my colleagues will know, we are also working with the Home Office in support of the safer schools partnerships programme, which has led to the basing of more than 400 police officers in schools to reduce criminality and victimisation, and to improve the safety of staff and pupils. We are also supporting Skillsforce, an increase in the funding for which I was delighted to announce last week. There is powerful evidence that it has made a real difference by increasing the motivation of children and young people, and by reducing exclusion in those schools that form part of this programme.
	The motion
	"deplores the announcement by the Government that it will force every state school, irrespective of the wishes of its head teacher, to take a share of pupils with disruptive or even violent backgrounds".
	However, this announcement is not about forcing head teachers to take disruptive pupils; it is about ensuring that when previously excluded pupils are ready to be re-integrated in schools, they are not sent to just one or two schools in a given locality. Both head teachers and school staff fully support the Government's proposal, which will help schools to co-operate in putting pupils back on the right track.
	I shall follow the practice of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale and quote from the various organisations involved. On the day that we announced this package, a representative of the Secondary Heads Association said:
	"I welcome today's package of measures, which demonstrates strong government support for head teachers in dealing with discipline problems."
	The National Association of Head Teachers said:
	"We endorse the need for limits to be placed on the number of excluded pupils who are dumped on schools because they have spare places. Too often this has a bad impact on a small number of schools in each local education authority. Schools around the country are already working together . . . There is absolutely no reason why this co-operation should not apply nationwide."

Phil Willis: Does the Minister agree that, with the odd exception, most children show signs of increasingly poor and violent behaviour before the point at which they need to be excluded? Does he further agree that if we are to deal with that problem, we need a system of managed transfer between organisations so that kids do not drop off the end of the cliff, then needing massive intervention? Is it not the Government's own policy, particularly in the five-year plan, to create more stand-alone, autonomous, state-funded private schools, which goes against the grain of getting schools to co-operate in order to deal with the problem?

Stephen Twigg: I agree with the hon. Gentleman on the first point and, not surprisingly, disagree with him on the second. A range of measures is available in respect of managed moves and schools working together. What the five-year strategy says is that we want schools to have their own identity, ethos and autonomy, while at the same time we want schools to work together to promote solutions to precisely some of the challenges that we are addressing in today's debate—foundation partnerships, for example. In a few moments I shall refer briefly to a specific example.

Andrew Turner: The Minister quoted the National Association of Head Teachers, but he quoted only its applause for the good bit of the Government's promise—that bad pupils should not be poured into part-empty schools. However, I did not hear him quote anything about the bad bit of the Government's threat—that bad pupils would be put into good schools even though they were full. Can the Minister confirm that it is not his policy that a child who has been excluded from one school can be forced into another full school against the wishes of the head teacher?

Stephen Twigg: Let me be absolutely clear: we cannot have it both ways. We need a position under which there is justice for the whole system. In fact, both the National Association of Head Teachers and the Secondary Heads Association worked closely together with us on this policy. We have not dreamt it up either on our own or with those two organisations. It is based on existing examples of good practice in many parts of the country. We are not saying that schools should be forced to take pupils who are clearly unsuitable for mainstream school education and we are not saying that grammar schools should have to take pupils who do not demonstrate the necessary academic aptitude. The guidance issued is based on best practice that already exists in a number of areas, including Stoke, Surrey and Kent, where the heads already share the admissions of pupils who are ready to return to mainstream schooling. They strongly support this approach. I am very disappointed to see the Conservatives condemn in their motion today a policy that is already working well in Conservative-run local education authorities such as Kent and Surrey, and is supported by both head teacher associations. I believe that our policy is based on common sense and clear evidence.

Phyllis Starkey: Is the Minister as disturbed as I am by the nomenclature used by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) when he referred to pupils who had been excluded but were deemed to be sufficiently rehabilitated as to be able to return to mainstream schooling as "bad pupils"? Is the Minister disturbed by the implication that such pupils cannot be rehabilitated and are therefore irredeemably damned as "bad pupils" who should presumably be excluded from the system for ever?

Stephen Twigg: I think that we all have to be careful about the language we use in these discussions because we are talking about the lives of children and the important impact that these decisions have on school communities.
	I shall now move on to that part of the motion whereby the House is said to believe
	"that head teachers should be given, unequivocally, the final say on expulsions by abolishing independent appeals panels".
	Some of the issues have already been rehearsed in interventions on the opening speech of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale and earlier in my speech. We are seeking to ensure that heads have the powers they need to exclude when necessary, but without killing off the appeals system, which provides safeguards to protect schools from needless and time-consuming litigation, as well as ensuring that fairness is transparent.
	It is well known that the previous Conservative Government introduced appeal panels in the first place. We have passed a number of reforms to the way in which those panels operate and I believe that they are a necessary safeguard for pupils and parents, that they conform to the interests of natural justice and comply with human rights legislation. Abolishing them would inevitably lead to a sharp increase in legal action by parents against schools. That would mean head teachers spending time in court, and it would be costly, both in time and money.

John Pugh: Does the Minister agree that under the Conservative policy, legal aid would not be available and only the rich could take action, so there would not be much legal action from parents of poor children?

Stephen Twigg: There are things that can be said in opposition that are unlikely to become practice in the unlikely event of the Opposition coming to power in the immediate future.
	I shall share with the House the statistics for independent appeal panels. In 2002–03, the latest year for which figures are available, independent appeal panels reinstated 149 out of 9,290 permanently excluded pupils, or less than 2 per cent. It cannot therefore be seriously argued that the abolition of independent appeal panels will make a big difference to the numbers of pupils excluded from school.
	We have heard a call for a sixfold increase in the number of places to be provided for high-quality, intensive but separate education of those whose behavioural difficulties make them unsuitable for inclusion in mainstream schools. We heard clarification from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale that that increase was based on a previous figure, so the sixfold increase would not take us from the 13,000 places that are available now to 78,000, which would cost around £650 million, but would mean an increase to 24,000, which is a more modest increase than that set out in the motion today.
	I would argue that preventive work by schools to improve behaviour is the better solution for the vast majority of pupils rather than taking them away from their schools.

Rob Marris: Does my hon. Friend share my bemusement at the Conservatives' proposals for turnaround academies or schools? In my constituency, we have the funding and the land set aside for a skateboard park, but we cannot get community agreement because of the worries about young people gathering. How on earth will the Opposition be able to propose that a turnaround school be built in any neighbourhood without provoking huge opposition? Or will we have another fantasy island for those pupils?

Stephen Twigg: Perhaps they want an island for the bad pupils. My hon. Friend raises a serious point. The estimated cost of the proposals is based simply on the revenue costs of pupil referral units. However, what would be the capital costs for turnaround schools? Is it suggested that the turnaround schools would be in new buildings, which would be hugely contentious, or would an existing school in each community be turned into a turnaround school? The policy that we have been pursuing is seeking to improve all schools so that we do not have sink schools. Do the Tories propose a sink school in every neighbourhood as a priority for Government policy?
	I do not know where the Opposition have got the 24,000 figure from, but we have been able to increase the capacity of pupil referral units. Indeed, we have almost doubled the number of places to 13,000, but we recognise that alternative provision is not simply confined to those units. For many children, work-based training or further education colleges—and some of the work done by the voluntary sector, such as the Prince's Trust and Skillsforce—can provide more appropriate ways to improve behaviour and therefore discipline. I am not persuaded that we need a further large expansion in pupil referral units. Indeed, the Ofsted report that was published last week raised some serious issues, but they were primarily issues of quality and were connected to the running of the system, not the number of places available.
	Pupil referral units are important, but they are only one part of the solution. We need to support schools in preventing exclusion through the use of learning support units within schools. There are now more than 1,000 of those units. They are typically based in schools and provide short-term teaching and support programmes for pupils who are disaffected, at risk of exclusion, or vulnerable for other reasons. The programmes are tailored to the needs of each pupil. The aim is to keep pupils in school and working while their problems are addressed, but to prevent them from disrupting the education of other children in the classroom. LSUs support whole-school approaches to behaviour and learning and teaching, and are a source of expertise in strategies for promoting positive behaviour.
	I welcome the report issued by Ofsted last Friday. Next month, we shall issue guidance on the quality of alternative provision to make it clear that the needs of each pupil have to be assessed and addressed. That will mean a range of approaches; yes, pupil referral units, but also the voluntary sector, Skillsforce, further education and work-based learning, depending on the needs of the particular child or young person.
	I want to turn to an important issue: the ability of teachers to exercise discipline and protection for them from the fear of false allegations of abuse. The motion urges swift legislation, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale set out in his speech. We share the belief in all parts of the House that someone who is under investigation by the police, but who has not been charged with a criminal offence, should not be identified in the press, and I pay tribute to the considered way in which the hon. Gentleman has raised that issue, both in this debate and at Education and Skills questions last month. As he knows, we are not persuaded that new legislation is required to achieve those aims. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) set out some of the challenges that we should face if we legislated in the way that has been suggested.
	We were all moved by the examples given by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale and by some of the other examples that have appeared in reports today and over recent years. We have a system of press self-regulation, overseen by the Press Complaints Commission, which provides safeguards against the publication of inaccurate or misleading information. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the PCC has issued further guidance about identifying people accused of crime, and the Association of Chief Police Officers' advice to police forces makes it clear that anyone under investigation, who has not been charged, should not be named, and their details should not be provided to the press. We have to balance a number of competing rights and pressures: the protection of teachers and staff, and of the child, quite rightly; as well as the right to privacy of people who are accused but not charged versus the freedom of the press. My sense is that there is much justice in what the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said, but that many of his arguments would apply equally well to other public service professionals, such as the youth service workers in the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, social workers or people working in residential care homes. That highlights some of the practical difficulties that might occur in legislating as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale proposed.

Chris Bryant: In many care homes, one of the advantages of some publicity when a case comes to court is that other people who have been seriously abused in the past can come forward and find justice and retribution. Does my hon. Friend think that there is a way in which that could be achieved without legislation?

Stephen Twigg: In a sense, that is what we are all grappling with in the debate—whether legislation is required, or whether the various existing codes, advice and guidance from both the PCC and ACPO are sufficient. We all need to watch the matter closely, but the Government are not persuaded, at this point, of the case for legislation. As the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale rightly accepted, we have recognised that part of the problem is to do with the delays that often exist in the system. Not only may teachers face an allegation that turns out to be false, but the system itself is ill-equipped and ill-prepared to deal with that allegation efficiently. We have analysed about 1,600 cases over the past year. Most of them were resolved quite quickly but an unacceptably high number—although not quite as high as the number I quoted on the "Today" programme—take longer: 22 per cent. take up to three months, while about one in 10 takes as long as a year. We are currently consulting teacher unions and others about how we can put in place an effective system so that if an allegation is made, it is dealt with speedily and efficiently, which is in the best interests of the accused and the accuser.
	To conclude, the motion says that
	"it is time for the rights of the majority of pupils, parents and teachers to be given greater weight."
	Of course, all pupils have rights as well as responsibilities. They have a responsibility to behave well, both for their own sake and for the sake of others in the school; to respect other pupils and authority, which is why we are investing in 10,000 learning mentors and, as I have said, doubled the capacity of pupil referral units. However, we do not want to abandon anyone, because that blights their future and creates problems for the communities in which they live. I do not believe that costly privatised borstals are the answer to any or every problem. It is far better to support collaboration among schools to offer any learner a second chance once their behaviour problems have been dealt with.
	Parents play a crucial role in children's learning and behaviour. They have rights, as the motion says, but they also have duties. Local education authorities and schools employ a range of informal and supportive strategies to help parents tackle their children's behaviour. A small minority of parents, however, are unwilling do so, which is why we have introduced a number of measures, including parenting orders and the new penalty notice scheme, to reduce truancy. We take behaviour and discipline seriously, which is why we have put significant resources into that programme. We have invested in this area in a way that no Government have done before. The real challenge for all of us is to promote respect and discipline—respect for one another but also respect for authority, as the hon. Member for Buckingham rightly said when he talked about the six R's. We want every child to have the very best chance. Good progress has been made, but many challenges remain.

Rob Marris: I do not want to destroy my hon. Friend's momentum, but will he advert briefly to the curriculum, as it affects pupil behaviour? The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) has talked about things that 14-year-olds might study within a school context but not necessarily at school. We should be talking about prevention as well as cure, and the curriculum has a role to play in prevention.

Stephen Twigg: My hon. Friend is right, and I am confident that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) will respond to that point in his winding-up speech.
	The Opposition's proposals are ill-considered and costly, and would undermine the progress that has been made. For those reasons, I urge the House to reject the motion and support the Government amendment.

John Pugh: This is a timely debate, because across the land schools are about to reach the end of the longest term of the year. Teachers are tired, and are clinging to the ropes. Pupils are more fractious, and problems are more evident. Everyone is focused on the last day of term and Christmas, and I am sure that we can all empathise with an experience that has been part of the natural history of British schooling for at least a century. However, there is a new phenomenon—blaming the Government for the problem of indiscipline. What people see of Parliament, especially Prime Minister's questions, on television does not encourage them to believe that we have a natural answer to unruly behaviour.
	Historically, bad behaviour has been considered the fault of pupils and, if not controlled effectively, schools. However, if it is true that we live in a nanny state, we have probably reached the point where nanny is held responsible for the behaviour of all her charges, especially when the Government try to micro-manage the entire educational process. However, in the Government's defence, it is worth making the point that such indiscipline as there is may in part be a product of complex cultural changes for which the Government cannot be held entirely responsible and which, in a democratic society, they are not completely empowered to address.

Chris Bryant: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one issue that has not been addressed so far this afternoon is the extent to which parents provide parameters for their children? One of the difficulties is that however much discipline may be enforced in a school and a disciplined environment achieved in which children may learn, it is difficult to maintain that the next day if no parameters are set for them when they go home.

John Pugh: It is an axiom in educational circles that, for good behaviour and good performance in school, parental support is crucial.
	Indiscipline comes in two variants: the general indiscipline of whole classes and, at times, whole schools; and the seriously disturbed and disturbing behaviour of a small minority of damaged young people, often with a dysfunctional family life behind them. Both problems need addressing; although both can occur together, they are different. General indiscipline in a school is treatable, in part, as the Minister said, by spreading good practice. That can work anywhere and there is a known recipe. We all know schools in our own constituencies that had problems, the problems were dealt with and discipline is now good.
	Counteracting indiscipline is not rocket science. It involves a range of specific actions: setting high standards; consistent and fair enforcement of those standards; and stamping out minor offences so that the major ones that lead to expulsion do not occur. I have taught in a secondary modern school, a dockland comprehensive and an independent school, and I found in all of them the recognition that clarity and consistency about educational standards and sensible enforcement is the secret. It is the main factor in good discipline in any school at any time and in any place.
	The recipe for good discipline involves other factors, such as mutual respect between pupils and staff. In my experience, pupils will forgive many things, but never neglect and disdain. The recipe also requires a relevant and challenging curriculum. Everyone agrees that an inflexible, inappropriate curriculum causes trouble for the underachieving and sometimes for the exceptional child. The Government seem to be addressing the problems of those who find an overly academic curriculum too tough, by adopting a more flexible approach towards the 14-to-16 curriculum.
	As a small footnote, it is worth pointing out that in the history of education, a number of exceptional people met difficulties at their schools. The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) wrote in a recent statement:
	"If bright pupils are not intellectually challenged in the classroom, is it any wonder that they get bored and cause trouble?"
	Many exceptional people had problems. The best example is Einstein, who was expelled, as were numerous poets including Baudelaire, Robert Frost for daydreaming, and Robert Southey, the lakeland poet, apparently for writing an essay at Westminster school condemning flogging. I looked into the question of whether any politicians of note were expelled, but the only one I came across was Mussolini, who was expelled for stabbing a pupil, an event which, strangely enough, did not stop him becoming a primary school teacher later in his career.
	Best practice requires an emphasis on community and responsibility. That must be instilled through the whole curriculum and reinforced by giving pupils responsibility in extracurricular activity. More than lip service must be paid to the citizenship agenda. Equally crucial, as has been mentioned, are support from, co-operation with and help for parents, where necessary encouraged by home-school contracts. What is needed, and what may be lacking from the Government's agenda, is monitoring and active support from local education authorities, reacting early to difficulties and to parental dissatisfaction. A further factor, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) mentioned, is the construction of a system that does not create sink schools but gives special help to schools in difficult circumstances.
	Creating the conditions for good discipline is, I repeat, not rocket science, but it is not helped by emasculating LEAs or by intervening only when a school gets past the point of no return and is classified as a failing school. It is not helped by encouraging competition at the expense of co-operation between schools, or by using league tables as a sole and crude basis for estimating how well schools are doing. It is certainly not helped by overburdening schools and teachers with bureaucracy or squeezing out extra-curricular activities.
	Liberal Democrats believe that every parent should be guaranteed undisrupted education for their child, whichever school they attend, and a school life free from bullying. It is a guarantee that I believe the professionals are capable of delivering, with very few exceptions, so long as we spread good practice and the Government provide the framework for it to happen.
	The second aspect of the problem is damaged and destructive children, who can wreak havoc in any institution. They are from families and communities that have broken down and they are increasing in number—I think that that is a documented fact; we can see it in the primary schools. They are unloved, resentful and lacking in self-esteem, but I do not share Rousseau's belief that all we need to do is present them with an interesting education and they will go for it. They will not give education a chance and after a while they cannot give education a chance. They must be sorted out or they will simply fester in society, destined for a genuinely miserable life at odds with society. They are what used to be referred to as "bad pupils", but they are also pupils for whom there is no real hope at the moment.
	Although pupil referral units were built for such pupils, they also need some genuinely creative solutions. Voluntary bodies such as Rathbone Training, the social commitments of which go back to 19th century Liverpool and which was started by a Liberal MP, have designed pioneering programmes.
	Effective, imaginative treatment and family support—and, where family support is required to be extended, parenting orders—can genuinely lead to a rapid turn round, provided that they are coupled with a strategy of early intervention, rather than masked, as they sometimes are in the early stages of primary schools. The rise in primary exclusions shows how early severely challenging behaviour can occur. We remain optimistic that, even here, there is evidence that there are solutions. There are currently 380 PRUs and various home tuition schemes, costing in excess of £200 million and not always providing the full curriculum, with a cost per pupil place similar to the most exclusive independent schools in the land. Those millions come from school budgets and are essentially money not spent on the education of the well behaved.
	I have some sympathy with the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who, on 29 November, said:
	"good discipline should not cost an extra penny".
	Strangely, he went on to promise to spend a further £200 million on the unruly, increasing sixfold the places for the uncontrollable.

Chris Bryant: I would not encourage the hon. Gentleman to become too worried about the arithmetic of the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard)—he might get into troublesome areas. The hon. Gentleman is talking about the cost of this work. Much evidence shows that the youth service is an equally effective but much cheaper way of intervening in many young people's lives. How does he think the youth service can work effectively with the education system to improve the lot of some of those young people?

John Pugh: There is a crying need for outreach youth work right across the land, and the youth service is certainly as creative as anyone in coming up with solutions for children whose behaviour is fundamentally antisocial and needs correcting and directing in a different and better direction.
	I have to go back to the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe, because his solution reminds me of Lord Whitelaw's detention centres, which were intended to deliver short, sharp shocks and solve the whole problem of crime, but which, in effect, did an enormous amount to improve the fitness level of burglars. Unlike the detention centres though, it is anticipated that the stay in turnaround schools, if we can call them that, will not be short. The whole approach smacks of the darkest pessimism, as does the figure of 24,000 places—twice the number of currently excluded pupils, on any estimation. Clearly, it is anticipated that indiscipline will get substantially worse under any future Tory Government.
	I shall pass over the problems already mentioned of capital cost, planning difficulties and so on, and conclude by saying that throwing £500 million or more—we are talking about adding to the cost of existing PRUs—at those who cannot or will not behave themselves is an expensive philosophy of despair.

Mark Hoban: If we do not provide special support to improve behaviour among that group of people, the cost will be borne not in our schools, but in our criminal justice system and communities, when those children go on to cause greater social problems later in life. We must improve their behaviour at school, where we have a chance, rather than leaving the criminal justice system to take its toll.

John Pugh: We need a system that does not result in 24,000 exclusions—a system with 24,000 exclusions is failing. In a modern democracy and civilised society, 24,000 exclusions are unacceptable.

Andrew Turner: The Minister admitted that 10 per cent. of pupils are educated in schools in which Ofsted feels that discipline is inadequate—he said that Ofsted feels that discipline is adequate in 90 per cent. of schools, and the reverse must therefore be true. He also said that 13 per cent. of head teachers believe that discipline is declining. Is it not the case that it is better to provide places for those who are not excluded at the moment, but who would be, were the places available?

John Pugh: May I respond from a professional perspective? If the only remedy for the poor discipline of pupils in a school is to expel them and they can be corrected in no other way, either the system is failing or the pupils are very difficult. I do not think that the system contains 24,000 unmanageable pupils, if good practice and good standards are upheld.
	A cheaper solution than that offered by the Conservative party is available. I shall use the example of the LEA of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins), which I took off the Department for Education and Skills website. Cumbria LEA has introduced school re-integration officers. As far as Conservative Members are concerned, "re-integration" is a bad word, but employing those people reduced exclusions and decreased the cost of prolonged replacements by nine tenths, with no obvious downside. The Conservative policy would cost a lot of money and is an uneconomical solution to a serious problem. Early intervention would save a great deal of money. Early intervention and the spreading of good practice have been proved to work. Throwing people in a sin bin for a long time is expensive, and one must believe that it is the right solution before one uses it.

Roger Williams: Wales will be spared the Conservative policy of turnaround schools, because education is a devolved matter. How would turnaround schools function in rural areas, where children would have to travel for many miles, which would take them out of their community and the support that it provides?

John Pugh: My hon. Friend has made an acute point. Later this week, we will debate the School Transport Bill, and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale will have to come clean and admit that his policy would add appreciably to the cost of school transport, which would be required in order to get pupils to turnaround schools.
	Finally, Liberal Democrat Members take a different view on accused teachers from that of the Government. The issue of anonymity has been a leading story on the BBC—I heard the Minister on the "Today" programme this morning, and I have seen the press release from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale. The story is not new—the Minister and I discussed it at the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers conference almost 12 months ago, and the Minister has followed a fairly consistent line on it—but it is serious.
	I was not convinced by the Minister's response on the radio this morning. He can correct me if I am wrong, but he seemed to say that malicious accusations could be dealt with by relying on press protocols and attempting to speed up the inquiry process rapidly to dispose of groundless complaints. I support press protocols and speeding up the inquiry process, which is a sensible reaction, but it is a fair objection that there has never been a press protocol that has not been breached on occasions. However fast the inquiry process goes, it is never as fast as the publication of tomorrow's newspaper, and one ill-directed headline can ruin a teacher's professional and personal life. Given that fact, there needs to be a substantive legal reason for opposing the suggestion, and it is not clear that there is one.

Stephen Twigg: The hon. Gentleman expresses concerns that all hon. Members would share. Clearly, press protocols do not in practice prevent such cases from going forward as they have in the past—that is why those protocols have been strengthened. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that although there is a strong argument for teachers, there is an equally strong argument for youth workers, residential care home workers and social workers, and that it would be difficult in practice to know where to draw the line?

John Pugh: The Minister makes a valid point. A case has been made for teachers and one could make a parallel case for other groups. The Government need to explore that in the round, because they must face up to the consequences of any legislation that they introduce. I think that the Minister would agree that his arguments do not automatically knock down those advanced by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale or by my hon. Friends. I hope that he will reconsider, because there are good arguments for dealing with this problem for the teaching profession.

Rob Marris: As the hon. Gentleman may have gathered, Labour Members have some sympathy for his case. The motion uses the words,
	"at least up to the point where a formal criminal charge is brought".
	When I practised as a solicitor before I entered the House, I acted for members of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers who were in that position. To echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said about care workers, anonymity, which I would support legislatively, could apply only up to the point of formal criminal charges being brought, because subsequently other victims might come out of the woodwork, and that would assist in the protection of the children, which is what we all want.

John Pugh: I am familiar with that issue, having been approached by care workers in my constituency who have had their careers ruined by wrongful accusations. To some extent, publicity can facilitate further legitimate complaints against the individual, but can in turn encourage other people with malice against that individual to make complaints. We all know the sad history of accusations of trawling by police bodies and the like, which I do not have time to go into today.
	It is hard to be completely dogmatic about the efficacy of educational systems, and I am particularly disinclined to be so. In the past two months, I have encountered and conversed with two ex-pupils from my time at a Bootle comprehensive. One was a haggard, toothless drug addict sitting on the floor of Liverpool Central station; the other was an upstanding policeman who now works in this building. I suppose that proves that Liberal Democrats can be all things to all people. Uncannily, both were appreciative of the education that they had received.
	There are no simple solutions to the problems of schools, but there are solutions. Zero tolerance can be a reality and need not cost a fortune. It requires early intervention, a sound educational framework, proper support and the will to guarantee undisrupted education for every child.

John Cryer: On a minor point, truancy has been mentioned, and it sets a bad example when, on a Conservative Opposition day, only two Conservative Members who do not have to be in the Chamber are here. I am sure that they are both on the Opposition's A-team and will set the Chamber alight with their speeches, which I look forward to. Nevertheless, there should be more of them here to debate this important issue.
	Will turnaround schools be located in existing buildings or in new build and, if the latter, where will they be put? For example, would the shadow Secretary of State support the construction of a new-build turnaround school in his constituency? Would he support that through the planning process, given that somebody would have to? If we reach the stage of new turnaround schools, which will be borstals of a kind, being constructed—I do not think we will, by the way—one can imagine the reaction of Conservative Members for whose constituencies they are proposed. They would run a mile from Opposition policy. They would not want such a school in a million miles of their constituencies.
	How would the schools be financed? Would the money come from the public sector? How would the Tory party, if it were ever to return to power, pay for the policy when it promises public spending cuts and tax cuts? Perhaps the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) will intervene and put me right. Would the money come from the public sector or would there be a mechanism to allow private sector companies to build or at least run the schools? I suspect that there would be the capacity to allow private sector companies to run them. When we get to the detail, I believe that that would be the solution because the Opposition cannot find a way round financing such schools on the basis of the spending proposals that will appear in their manifesto before the next election.

Mark Hoban: If the hon. Gentleman pays close attention to such matters, he will realise that the Conservative party has made a commitment to increase spending on schools, including turnaround schools, by £15 billion over the lifetime of the first Conservative Government. That is a significant increase in expenditure. We believe that that will meet the cost of turnaround schools as well as improving school funding throughout the country.

John Cryer: I would be interested to know where that money will come from. If the Conservatives intend to increase spending by £15 billion, where will they find the money when they are committed to cutting taxes?

Chris Bryant: Is not the truth of the matter that the youth service, which is so useful in dealing with the problem, is one aspect that might lose out in the education budget under a Tory Government?

John Cryer: My hon. Friend is probably right about that. As I have said, when we get down to the detail, the Tories will probably include a proposal in their manifesto to allow private sector companies—perhaps "Group 4 Schools"—to run the schools. Before they do that, they should consider the worrying examples of private sector involvement in schools in America, where they have been allowed simply to take over.
	The most notorious example is Baltimore, where the private sector—the company was called Education Alternatives Inc.—took over nine schools. For some time afterwards, results officially went through the roof and everything was going well until the local newspaper, The Sun in Baltimore, exposed what was genuinely happening. It turned out that the private company had fabricated all the results while creaming off public sector money to spend on a new headquarters hundreds of miles away. It had also spent money on a new fleet of limousines to ferry its executives around. I am drifting off the point slightly.
	Earlier, a Liberal Democrat Member mentioned Conservative councils that pursued policies that directly contradicted Opposition statements from the Dispatch Box this afternoon. My council is an example of that. It is a Conservative-controlled local authority that, in the face of what we heard this afternoon, tried in the past few months to close a primary school in my constituency. At one point, it put three primary schools under threat but concentrated on one specific school, the R. J. Mitchell primary school. It is named after the designer of the Spitfire because of the history of RAF Hornchurch, the remnants of which are in my constituency.
	The R. J. Mitchell primary school was placed under direct threat of closure, which was announced but never followed through because of public pressure. What would have happened if it had closed down? At some point in the next few years, there will be an increase in the number of children of primary school age in the borough of Havering, which I represent. If the closure had happened, houses would probably have been built on the site, the number of school-age children in the area would have increased and there would have been a corresponding increase in the number of children in the classrooms of the remaining schools. That would have made it more difficult to maintain discipline in those schools.
	Conservative Members voted against the allocation of the money that has gone into reducing class sizes, especially for five, six and seven-year-olds. I probably visit a school a week, on average, and I would have thought that smaller classes were crucial to maintaining discipline. Ever-burgeoning class sizes would just make that more difficult.
	Smaller class sizes are crucial, but the actions of the local authority in this case went directly against that. It was trying to create bigger classes and connived in trying to undermine the school. It announced the closure when it announced the consultation process, which meant that certain parents took flight and placed their children in other schools. The local authority hoped that that would result in a self-fulfilling prophecy and that the school would close almost of its own volition. That did not happen, however. Of course, it then tried to take the credit when it was announced that the school was to stay open.
	An important point was raised earlier about the abolition of the appeals panels. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned judicial review—

Rob Marris: It was me.

John Cryer: I am sorry. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) made a crucial point in that regard. The shadow Secretary of State made it clear that, under his policies, there would be no legal aid and that the no win, no fee system would not apply in such cases. However, it is not as simple as that. Tory Front Benchers are under the illusion that the parents who get caught up in this process tend to be those without many financial resources, but most parents who decide to fight such decisions have some knowledge and a bit of get up and go, and they certainly have financial resources available to them. They would go to judicial review and, in many cases, they might win.

Rob Marris: May I correct my hon. Friend on one point? His recollection of what the Conservative Front-Bench spokesperson said is slightly different from mine. I do not recall the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) ruling out no win, no fee agreements—conditional fee agreements, to give them their proper title. That could be very difficult in terms of human rights.

John Cryer: My recollection is that the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman did rule out such agreements.
	We are therefore talking about people using their own money to go to judicial review. If that were to happen, it would be the parents who had the financial resources to do so who would go to court. That would involve a far longer drawn-out and more expensive process than we have now and local education authorities would incur far greater costs. I can certainly think of one or two families in the borough that I represent who would go to judicial review and end up running up large legal bills, as would the LEA.
	The other point about the abolition of appeals panels is that, contrary to what we have heard this afternoon, head teachers are normally the final arbiters. Some cases go to the appeals panels, but I visited a school recently in which a number of pupils had just been expelled, for reasons that I shall not go into. To my knowledge, none of those cases had been to the appeals panel. That is the normal path. In the past 20 or 30 years, the powers of head teachers have grown rather than diminished. Those of us who visit schools regularly—which probably means everyone in the Chamber today—know that the head teacher is in a very powerful position, and that the school reflects that. If a school has a powerful, effective, strong head teacher, it will follow on from that and tend to be a good school. If a head teacher does not have those qualities, the school will start to slip, even if it has hitherto had a good reputation.
	Another fantasy that we heard from the Conservatives today was the idea that education is now in the clutches of a group of wild-eyed lefties from the lunatic fringe. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) put forward that idea, but I do not know who he had in mind. Perhaps it was Chris Woodhead. If anyone who has served in education for many years has a specific politicised agenda, it is Woodhead. But it is not a left-wing agenda, as even some Tory Members must be able to spot. He had a very clear right-wing political agenda. It was not just political, however. It was also driven by the fact that he had an ego the size of Western Australia. That played an important part. We were elected on 1 May 1997 and we should have sacked him on 2 May.

Phil Willis: Labour reappointed him.

John Cryer: I gathered that. Such is life.

Andrew Turner: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's thesis. As he has named someone, perhaps he will explain how that person's agenda was right wing?

John Cryer: From what I remember, that person expressed views that were consistent with the editorial policy of the Daily Mail and the policy of the Conservative party. He was appointed by the Conservative party. His attacks on teachers, which were almost always without foundation, were generally perceived as coming from a right-wing perspective. I think that that is generally accepted across the Chamber, the press and most of those involved in education, but it could be that we are all wrong and the hon. Gentleman is right. I have no idea.

Andrew Turner: The hon. Gentleman has indulged in guilt by association. Now will he explain why the policies that he has described are right wing?

John Cryer: Let me try to explain this as clearly as I can, so that the hon. Gentleman can understand. Chris Woodhead attacked the teaching profession, the teaching trade unions and what he saw as a lefty, liberal elite controlling teaching. That was generally seen and accepted as coming from a right-wing perspective. That is how most of us saw and analysed it. The idea that there is a liberal, vaguely lefty, wild-eyed revolutionary elite controlling teaching and education is absolute fantasy. It goes back to the days of the William Tyndale school in the 1960s, but things have changed a bit. As a matter of fact, I do not think that the teaching profession has ever been particularly dominated by people who are ideologically driven left wingers, but there we are.
	Anonymity for teachers under threat of prosecution is a fair point that was raised by several speakers, including my hon. Friend the Minister, and it is worth looking at. I understand the objections that my hon. Friend made in respect of reviewing the legislation, but teachers are probably more in the firing line than people in any other profession, even carers. When such accusations are made, teachers get it in the neck more than anyone else—it is easier to accuse them than members of any other profession—and it is easy for pupils to make false accusations and make up false evidence against teachers, for whatever reason. It would be a good idea to at least consider the proposal to see whether there is any way in which we can change legislation to give teachers anonymity or at least slightly more protection.
	On a general point, which was mentioned from the Liberal Benches by the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh), we are, to a large extent, dealing with cultural changes that go back many, many years. We can all see that there has been a rise in individualism. That has been responsible for the behaviour of a certain group of pupils and parents in schools, but only a minority.
	Baroness Thatcher said to people:
	"There is no such thing as Society."
	She was actually saying, "Nobody else matters; just you matter. You only have to care about yourself. You don't have to care about anybody else." In part, the process of growing up and of maturation is the realisation that one person is not the centre of the universe and that other people depend on us and we depend on them. If we say to people that that process does not matter and that they are the centre of the universe, we are giving them a licence to behave as they like.
	Since then, and all three parties bear some responsibility for this, the issue of choice—choice itself—has been deified to an extent where consumerism is almost the new religion. When consumerism, individualism, choice and individual gratification are elevated to such a level, we can hardly be surprised that a minority of pupils are encouraged by their parents to think only of themselves and not ever of anybody else. Over the past few years, not enough of us have challenged that and attempted to assert the importance of collective duties and responsibilities—the duties towards the community.
	To some extent, what we have been talking about this afternoon is a product of tabloid stories that we all read about how terrible schools are and how pupils cannot communicate, are thick and unable to talk to one another. That is not a picture that I recognise from my visits to schools. Last week, I visited two primary schools in my constituency, St. Alban's and St. Mary's, and I received a visit from Dunningford primary school in Parliament. When I talk to pupils, whether from primary or secondary schools, and when they ask me questions, I see children who are, not entirely but largely, motivated, eager and knowledgeable, and able to articulate ideas to a much greater extent than my generation at school.
	The picture that I recognise is that a lot of schools—obviously, I am just talking about my constituency experience—are succeeding, moving ahead and producing children who are bright, able, gifted and articulate. We should not therefore get carried away with the idea that all schools are in a war zone. They are not. A minority of pupils are providing problems, and every teacher and head teacher can recount stories about that, but the vast majority of pupils are just the opposite.

Archie Norman: It is a great pleasure, as ever, to follow the hon. Member for Hornchurch (John Cryer). In response to his jibe about attendance in the House, I would point out only that the number of Opposition Members who have attended this debate has been approximately the same as the number of Government Members, if not greater. Of course, in relation to our representation in Parliament, in percentage terms, more Opposition Members have attended than Government Members.
	I cannot promise to entertain the hon. Member for Hornchurch as he requested, but I want to make a number of points, the first of which is about discipline in our schools.
	It is generally accepted on both sides of the House that poor discipline is a serious problem and must be addressed. We know that there is a strong correlation between poor discipline in schools and low educational attainment or performance of that school, and between poor discipline and truancy. I think that the Minister suggested that the increase in unauthorised absence was attributable to the way in which it is recorded. I do not know whether that is true, but it is clear that over the past seven years and longer few inroads have been made into the problem of truancy, which we all recognise is a very serious issue.
	Equally, the level of exclusions remains stubbornly high, and I share with the Liberal Democrat spokesman the view that any exclusion represents a failure, at many levels, in the community and in that school. There is a strong correlation, of course, between truancy and exclusion, and criminality and subsequent economic failure of the individual. The cost to society of failure of discipline, which in turn leads to exclusion or unauthorised absence, is therefore very high later in the child's life.
	As many hon. Members said, poor discipline is not prevalent or chronic across all schools. Most schools have good standards of discipline and highly motivated pupils, and in general there has been some improvement in performance over the past decade or so. Indeed, the Minister mentioned the Ofsted figures, which suggest that standards of behaviour, as recorded by Ofsted, have improved in most schools. That may well be so, although we must cast some doubt over the way in which Ofsted measures behaviour. Clearly, however, failing schools are still failing, and the problem is not with the generality of the school system but with those few schools—perhaps one in 10 or fewer—that have serious discipline problems. Typically, those schools are in areas of social deprivation in our inner cities. Indeed, a recent study by the Institute for Public Policy Research, the Government's favourite think-thank, demonstrates the strong relationship between exclusions, school discipline problems and failure, and inner cities and failing LEAs.
	We must therefore recognise the nature of the problem, which is not a general problem but one of selected schools in selected areas—typically, areas of high social deprivation. That is why this is an issue not just of school discipline and leadership but of communities and how we tackle communities that are failing to produce good schools and good education for their children.
	I think it is agreed on all sides that the problem starts very early, and that intervention must therefore also start very early. Studies show that it is possible to forecast a high level of exclusion or truancy among children between the ages of three and six. That strongly suggests that if we intervene at that stage, especially in areas where parenting and the general community context are poor, we will achieve value for money. To that extent, the Government's investment in Sure Start and other measures to increase pre-school education are worthwhile and can be supported by us all.
	My comparatively well-off constituency contains pockets of social deprivation, some featuring large numbers of single parents who are out of work and whose own educational attainment is poor. I recently visited the Panda pre-school nursery in Sherwood, run by volunteers who concentrate on giving children aged two or three basic social skills such as the ability to sit down and eat a meal with other children. Members may say that that is a substitute for parenting, and perhaps to an extent it is, but it is what is required nevertheless. I am convinced that early investment in such programmes will pay greater dividends than almost any other measure.
	Sure Start and other pre-school programmes must emphasise the importance of discipline. Even today, far too many children attend primary school without the basic social skills that should have resulted from investment in pre-school education and nurseries. As I have said, the lack of discipline is partly a problem of social deprivation. All too often we see heroic head teachers doing a magnificent job in very difficult circumstances in relatively deprived areas, but complaining—as nearly all of them do—about a shortage of resources and the sheer intensity of the effort required to lift a school out of its problems.
	Schools in deprived areas, with high levels of special educational need and other community problems, need extra resources if they are to impose discipline. Partly because of the high level of selection in Kent, almost all children with special needs or behavioural problems end up at Tunbridge Wells high school in my constituency. As a result, it is a very challenged school. Graham Smith, the headmaster, has made an heroic effort to raise its educational attainment over the last seven years, almost single-handed. He emphasised discipline heavily from the start of the turnaround phase, which led to a large number of exclusions, which created resentment and difficulty in the local school population and were not always greeted enthusiastically by the LEA; but those exclusions were a necessary step towards improving the quality of the school during the turnaround.
	Mr. Smith says that because his is a difficult school with a large percentage of challenged or problem pupils, he finds it difficult to attract teachers and has a high turnover rate. Investing in teacher accommodation, and being able to pay more to attract teachers, are important first steps towards the establishment of a disciplined school that performs well. Mr. Smith also says that because of the high proportion of violent kids in his school—whose play and behaviour tend to be more robust than those of others—the physical wear and tear on the school, and the budget that he must allocate to basic maintenance, are possibly greater than in schools not faced with such problems.
	The one thing that I think is clear to all of us in the House is that it is critical that we support head teachers who undertake the often thankless task of ensuring that failing schools recover and that discipline is restored. All too often, it is those head teachers who feel relatively under-resourced and under-supported.
	The central role of the head teacher as leader of the school and, in a sense, leader of the community brings us on to the difficult question of exclusions. Exclusions have become a curiously totemic issue in the debate. I suspect that there is more consensus on the underlying issues surrounding exclusions than may appear on the surface. One thing is clear: when they happen, exclusions are extremely damaging not just to the children but to the community in which they operate.
	The IPPR study to which I referred earlier demonstrates that exclusions are not a major problem across the entire school system—they are a problem in a minority of schools and in a minority of areas that are challenged. Unsurprisingly, those tend to be inner-city areas, which often face other difficulties, perhaps associated with the ethnic mix and failing local education authorities. Often, there are a number of failing schools in those areas, not just one, so pupils get moved from one struggling school to another.
	It is clear that turnaround of a failing school is unlikely to be achieved without tough action on discipline. Therefore, our approach to exclusions must be related to the nature of that school and to the challenge that the head teacher and staff face. It is simply not possible to produce blanket conclusions. One area in which the Government have been culpable is in setting targets for exclusions and applying pressure across the board. The problem is not susceptible to across-the-board targeting and pressure; it is situational.
	It is important to recognise that any exclusion is likely to be a life-defining experience for the child involved. We should not treat it lightly; nor should we regard an exclusion as something that can be readily accepted or encouraged. All too often, when a child is excluded from school, there is a conspicuous gap before he is found another place in another school. In west Kent, I have met parents of children who have been excluded from school for four or five months before finding an alternative. That gap is extraordinarily damaging not just to their education but to their self-esteem. All too often, during that period, they are on the streets or at home getting up to no good.
	As we know, there is a high correlation between the level of exclusions and criminality. According to the Youth Justice Board, 32 per cent. of children caught up in the youth justice system have been excluded. A high proportion of the children excluded from schools end up in criminal difficulty of one sort or another. It is also true that children who have been excluded are more likely to be guilty of serious criminal offences than those who have not. As the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), said, exclusion should be the last resort and, by that stage, it is a failure.
	We need to bear it in mind that, if a child is excluded from school, the replacement school can be miles away. In a high proportion of cases, these are children with a single parent or with no access to transport. Therefore, either it is going to cost the LEA a lot of money to transport that child, or the likelihood is that he will not get to the other school and we end up with a recurring truancy problem.
	The number of excluded children who get back into mainstream education successfully and enjoy any sort of educational attainment is woefully low. Again, we need to recognise that, once excluded, we are close to the end of the road and the incidence of successful recovery of excluded kids is pretty low.
	For all those reasons, I am cautious about giving head teachers an unfettered right to exclude. I agree that there is a problem with the appeals panel, but that is often as much symbolic as actual, because the head teachers feel that they do not have the authority. In the rare instances in which their decision is overturned, there can be a serious problem with morale for both staff and the other kids, and their authority can be undermined. The practices of head teachers in relation to exclusion vary extremely widely, and given the traumatic effect on the pupils concerned, it is essential to have some due process and an opportunity for the child and the parents to represent their case, perhaps to school governors or others.
	I share the view that a great investment in turnaround schools or referral places—whichever term we prefer—is merited. We have to accept that some kids have failed in or been failed by the school system and cannot readily be accommodated in normal schools. I accept it unwillingly, and I do not believe that it has to be the case in the long term, but I am afraid that in today's schools and communities there are such instances, and that is exactly why there has been investment in referral units. We need to take that investment further.
	We must recognise, too, however, that that is only a small part of the solution and that we must intervene early. As the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said, arranging transfers and so on is a much better route than exclusion or a move to a turnaround school. Such schools are likely to be remote from where many of the children referred to them live, so there are practical problems. Transport is not the only problem, because part of turning around or bringing back a child is to do with the parents and the local community.
	We must also recognise that there is a risk—I am not saying that it cannot be managed—that turnaround schools will become places where young offenders or children who have fallen into criminal habits will get together, so that we create concentrated pools of criminality instead of effective turnarounds. The schools or units need an intensive, and I must say expensive, strategy of working with the individual child to find a route back to normal education. I say to Front Benchers on either side that it is critical that we do not underestimate the cost and the investment required to bring a child who has been excluded back into normal education.

Phil Willis: The hon. Gentleman is making a most thoughtful and considered speech. Does he share the concern that I have about the solution proposed by his party's Front Benchers? They seem to be looking for an institutional, one-size-fits-all solution to what is an incredibly complex problem. He will know from a former life that one of the things that turn around some of our most disillusioned young people is engaging with the world of work: employers can be part of the solution. Turnaround schools, or borstals, or whatever we want to call them, cannot be the only solution. We need to seek a plethora of solutions, including one on one, distance learning, perhaps home tuition, workplace placements and pupil referral units, as well as other schools and institutions.

Archie Norman: I agree, and I do so without in any sense demurring from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale in his opening speech. Turnaround units can of course play an important part, and as I have said, we have to accept that in today's world there are kids for whom such units are probably the only solution. But it is important to recognise that that solution is very intensive and individual and is likely to require a great deal of investment. However, we should not shirk from such investment, because in the long run it will be worth while. That said, I share entirely the view that that solution has to be but one of a variety. We also need to recognise that by the time that we reach that stage, the education system will probably have been failing the child in question for many years.
	Of course, we can all get excited about discipline, but we should recognise that it is not an issue in all schools. We have many good schools with good standards of discipline and highly motivated teachers and pupils, and we need to support them. We should also recognise that in general there has been some improvement. I am not so sure that we should entirely believe Ofsted's judgment in this respect, but there has probably been some improvement in many average and better schools in the past few years. Unfortunately, such improvement has not occurred in the failing schools as well; they are still failing, and therein lies the problem.
	It is clear that if we can deal with failing schools, which tend to be clustered with other failing schools in failing LEAs in socially deprived areas, the subsequent dividend to society will be great; that is to say nothing, of course, of the value to the pupils in question. That is why this is a very important issue. It requires early investment, increased resources for schools that are trying to achieve some form of turnaround, backing for head teachers and measures to ensure that they feel in a position of complete authority.
	The Minister will perhaps agree that we simply have not seen enough improvement in the past seven years in the worst schools—those that are failing their pupils—which tend to be located in the most difficult areas. Members from all parts of the House must accept that this is a very important challenge, and one that the Government have yet to meet. Schools with poor discipline that fail their own children tend to be concentrated in those areas where children do not have the opportunities enjoyed by those living in more affluent areas, such as the benefit of a better start in life or good early years parenting. The priority for all Members must be to bring freedom and opportunity to children who have the poorest start in life. They usually attend the schools with the worst disciplinary records, which is why we need to make this investment.

Andrew Turner: I begin by echoing what the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) said about the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman). It was indeed thoughtful and constructive, and I hope that I can add further to that tendency in this debate.
	I support the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) that teachers should be entitled to anonymity when allegations are made against them, and certainly up to the point at which they are formally charged. I should make it clear that Alastair Wilbee—the former head teacher of Summerfields school, who killed himself following the allegations made against him—was not named in the Isle of Wight County Press until after he had been charged. I have had long discussions about the rights and wrongs of my hon. Friend's proposal with the editor of that publication, and I have also discussed them with Alastair's widow. I also met representatives of other teachers and head teachers in my constituency and I believe that there is a considerable measure of support for the proposal. Other measures could be taken as well to make the trauma of such an allegation less damaging. One such measure that I would like the House to consider is whether it is right for suspension always, or almost always, to take place when such allegations are made.
	I recognise that the allegation of abuse covers a wide range of activities, some of which we would all agree should lead to immediate suspension and some of which might be accommodated by a lesser step. I accept, of course, that it is difficult to contemplate a lesser step when a head teacher is concerned. Nevertheless, I would not suggest that a representative of the local education authority should go to the chairman of governors to say that a head teacher should be suspended or that the chairman should feel under pressure to suspend and should decide to do so with the LEA representative present. Simply giving someone 10 minutes to clear his desk and leave is an overreaction to some kinds of allegation. It might be more appropriate for the LEA representative to remain in the school for a while and perhaps for the head—or any teacher, for that matter—not to be allowed to be with a child unaccompanied, particularly not with the child who has made the allegation. Those matters need to be considered carefully and unemotionally.
	It is my belief that Mr. Wilbee's trauma arose from the fact that he was unable to speak to any of his staff, to any of the parents or to his professional colleagues to any great extent, with the LEA simply casting him adrift and leaving him for months with the allegations hanging over him before there was any decision to prosecute him. There was a long period between his suspension and the decision to prosecute. I believe that that could happen to other head teachers. I support the proposal advanced by Conservative Front Benchers because I find it extraordinary that, as a society, we are prepared to accept the anonymity of convicted paedophiles, but not to protect that of unconvicted teachers and head teachers.
	Other aspects of the motion have been debated at some length, but I should like to add a little to each. On exclusions, it is extraordinary to listen to Government Front Benchers who give the impression not that the history of education began in 1997, but almost that it began in 2001. Perhaps the Home Secretary was right when he said that the Secretary of State for Education and Skills had gone a bit soft. Certainly the Secretary of State and his team appear a great deal more reasonable, at least most of the time, than their predecessors between 1997 and 2001. It was those predecessors who said that too many pupils were being excluded, who demanded reductions in their number and who suggested that schools should be fined for excluding pupils. Those same predecessors also made the rules much more difficult for head teachers confronted by appeal panels. I see the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) nodding. He obviously recognises the failure of his predecessors in this matter.

Ivan Lewis: indicated dissent.

Andrew Turner: Now he is shaking his head, but he was nodding when I suggested the failure earlier. His predecessors made it more difficult for a head teacher to secure the exclusion of a child who should be excluded. In doing so, they were sending out the wrong signals to parents and pupils—that the decisions of teachers and head teachers in disciplinary matters could not be trusted, could routinely be appealed against and, in many cases, overturned. Children, who are not as sophisticated as their parents and teachers, were given the signal that they could get away with bad behaviour. The behaviour of those predecessors when in opposition suggested that schools should not have the power to exclude, that voluntary and grant-maintained schools should not have that power and should be subject to decisions by the local education authority. I am sorry to say that that message in opposition was reinforced by the message they conveyed between 1997 and 2001.
	Well, the sinner repenteth, at least slightly, for which I congratulate the Secretary of State. Occasionally, however, he still feels the need to play to the gallery, which he did when he talked about sharing out bad pupils. The gloss that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg), provided in response to my earlier intervention was welcome, but it was not a gloss that was widely reported when the Secretary of State's remarks—that all schools should be forced to take their share of badly behaved pupils—first appeared on the BBC website. Of course, the Secretary of State is not responsible for the content of the BBC website, any more than he is responsible for headlines in the Daily Mail, but I am sure that the authors of those articles take a little backstairs briefing from Ministers and their advisers from time to time. They print the headlines that they believe will secure the readers' interest and Ministers frequently create the headlines that will secure their interest by a little careful backstairs briefing.
	As I said, the Under-Secretary provided a gloss today. First, the gloss is that the policy works elsewhere—in Surrey and a number of other areas. I accept that. The process of moving one child from a school in which he is failing to one in which he might get a second chance works elsewhere, but that is not what Ministers are proposing. They are proposing to force pupils on to schools even though they may not have the space and the head teacher may be opposed to the admissions.
	The second part of the Under-Secretary's gloss was that pupils would be returned only when they were reformed, but if they are reformed, they can be returned to any school, not just those without available places, so how will he secure the return of reformed pupils to schools that are already full?

Phil Willis: I am listening with interest to what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I thought that he was going to continue in the same vein as the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman). The other part of Conservative party policy, which I presume the hon. Gentleman also supports, is to give head teachers and governors control over admissions. Thus one head could send a pupil out on permanent exclusion, while another head would not, under the Conservative proposals on admissions, have to take in any pupils. Where is the consistency in that?

Andrew Turner: I would have thought that it was entirely consistent to give head teachers control over not only who they exclude from their schools, but who they admit to them. That is entirely consistent. I suppose that the hon. Gentleman is being consistent as well, because he does not support giving head teachers control over either admissions or exclusions. [Interruption.] If reformed pupils are to be returned to schools where there is no space as well as to those where there is, Ministers will have either to overcrowd the schools where there is no space or keep places empty in popular schools in case a reformed pupil turns up. That reformed pupil will then leapfrog over those on the list who want to be admitted to that popular school. That is an absolutely extraordinary proposal. I cannot tell whether Ministers want overcrowded schools or empty spaces in popular schools and a queue of pupils unable to fill them. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that point.
	We propose a system of turnaround schools. It must be accepted that pupil referral units—a previous Secretary of State thought that they started in 1997, but I was able to remind her that I taught in a school with a withdrawal unit, which comes to much the same thing, as early as 1980—outside schools, or withdrawal units within schools, cost more money to provide. They need to provide education to the same standard for the most difficult pupils, and teaching and pedagogy to a higher standard perhaps than is available elsewhere in the school or in other schools. It is not surprising that they need smaller class sizes, better qualified teachers and special programmes. We should accept that we sometimes have to pay more to teach children who are difficult to teach.
	The problem at the moment is that a reformed pupil who goes back into a school carries with him few if any additional resources, little outside support and, in many cases, the same difficulties that he had before he was excluded. Let us increase the age-weighted pupil unit cost for difficult pupils. If necessary, let us increase that unit cost until a school is willing to admit them. There is no reason why every child of a particular age should carry the same age-weighted pupil unit funding: there is every reason why those pupils who are not welcome in particular schools should be funded to a higher level until schools do welcome them. That would be the introduction of a genuine market in education and it would provide effective education for children who have been excluded. Turnaround schools would help to provide that.
	I said earlier that 10 per cent. of schools are recognised by Ofsted as suffering from poor discipline and 13 per cent. are getting worse. That means that too many pupils are being educated alongside difficult and disruptive contemporaries. They suffer bullying. Those who are excluded, sometimes to internal exile and sometimes to a pupil referral unit, far too frequently lose their education as well. The pupils who are well behaved lose their education and so do those who are badly behaved. Too many pupils in internal exile in schools are on a partial curriculum. I know of a particular pupil in my constituency who was excluded from one school and moved to another where he is on a 50 per cent. curriculum. What is he doing for the other 50 per cent. of the time? He is certainly not receiving the entitlement of every child about which the Government boast and that we believe every child deserves.
	Turnaround schools have already been established and succeeded. St. Paul's school in Balsall Heath in Birmingham was established in the 1980s, when it was a private sector school. It became a grant-maintained school by the process of opting in and it is now a maintained sector school. It took, largely, pupils who had been excluded from the maintained sector. It obtained for them better GCSE results than most pupil referral units achieved. Turnaround schools could be a success where PRUs are not yet a success, not least because they would provide the capacity to allow pupils who misbehave to be removed from their schools. If the hon. Member for Hornchurch (John Cryer) thinks that I would not want one in my constituency, I can tell him that we already have three prisons. I am not proposing a borstal, but we have a pupil referral unit that could be upgraded to the extent that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench propose.
	I shall touch on two more issues and I hope that the Minister will be able to address one of them at least. First, I believe that it needs to be accepted that much disruption in schools is among pupils who have suffered the trauma of family breakdown. It is all very well to treat those pupils late on in the process, but the Minister heard my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) give the figures in a debate in Westminster Hall last week. Ministers have said that they are trying to do something about the problem by means of the money invested in pupil behaviour. However, that does not deal with the cause of the problem, which is increasing levels of family breakdown. I hope that the Government can give some hope to future generations that we will not see the level of family breakdown that we have seen recently and that has led to the breakdown of discipline in some schools.
	The second issue is Labour's history on this issue. I spoke of what had happened between 1997 and 2001. I now want to go back a little further. Labour's history on this issue is chequered, to the say the least. Labour's support for parents, heads, teachers and police was very chequered. The hon. Member for Hornchurch mentioned William Tyndale school, but I need hardly remind him that that school was run by the Inner London education area in the 1970s and it failed a huge number of pupils—

John Cryer: I was talking about 1968.

Andrew Turner: If the hon. Gentleman wants me to go back to the 1960s and 1970s, I will although I was confining myself to the 1980s and 1990s. As I said, in many cases Labour subverted the powers and responsibilities of teachers, undermined parents and refused the police access to schools when it was in control of too many local authorities.

Ivan Lewis: In the context of a debate about rights and responsibilities, does the hon. Gentleman accept that 18 years of unbroken rule gives any political party the opportunity to transform a generation? Many of the social problems that we now deal with are not exclusively the responsibility of the Tory party, but for him to describe the 1980s and 1990s as being affected largely by Labour policy—when his party were in government for 18 years—is somewhat galling.

Andrew Turner: The Minister started listening only halfway through my sentence. I was not describing the consequences of Conservative Government, but of Labour policy as implemented through local education authorities which had unbridled control of education up until 1986. In the 1980s, the Government did not attempt to remove power from local education authorities and Labour exercised power in far too many of them. Several Labour LEAs undermined heads, undermined teachers and prevented the police from entering schools. That is what Labour sowed: it is now reaping the whirlwind. The Labour Govt are trying to do something about it, but it is late for them to do so.

Ivan Lewis: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haslehurst): Order. I think that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) has completed his speech.

Angela Watkinson: I consider myself very lucky in the context of education because I represent a constituency that forms part of the London borough of Havering, along with my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (John Cryer). The local education authority is excellent and it has a co-operative and cordial relationship with its schools and head teachers. It devolves the maximum amount of funding from the centre to the schools, putting its trust in the schools to manage themselves successfully—and they do. Discipline is not a huge problem in Havering, although, as in most constituencies, a tiny minority of pupils cause problems.
	From personal experience of serving on appeals panels on Essex county council and the education committee of the London borough of Havering, I know that, almost without exception, head teachers use exclusion as absolutely the last resort. It is the ultimate disciplinary measure after they have exhausted every other means available in the school. After listening carefully to the case made by the education authority and the head teacher and, often, to submissions from parents and even grandparents, I always supported the head teacher, because I understood that they had reached the point of desperation—where the welfare of the majority of pupils and staff had to transcend the rights and welfare of the difficult pupil. In almost every case, the head teacher felt that to reach that point was an admission of defeat.
	I can recall only one occasion when I upheld an appeal. It involved a child in a special school who had been violent to another pupil and had a history of being difficult. After listening to the parents and grandparents who put his case, I weakened and allowed the appeal. Now, I think of it as weakening, although I did not at the time. I regretted it bitterly afterwards when I realised that I had let down the school, whose staff had tried so hard, in every way possible, to adapt the child's behaviour, but had failed.
	Most schools in Havering and throughout the country have well-developed pastoral units, with teachers who have special responsibility for difficult pupils. They bend over backwards to make alternative arrangements for children who find it difficult, or sometimes impossible, to accept discipline and to conform at school and in the classroom. Schools make special arrangements for such pupils, providing separate lessons. The school council is often brought in to try to understand why a pupil cannot conform and to try to find a way through their difficulties. Even the primary schools in my constituency have school councils and I am impressed by the way they handle the disciplinary, emotional and bullying problems of other pupils. Thus even at primary level, children are learning co-operation. They learn how to listen to somebody else's argument and how to put their thoughts into words. They are gaining meeting skills.
	Those developments are recent, but they will feed through. When those children reach secondary school, their experience of school councils in primary school will be of enormous benefit in approaching difficult children who are unable to conform, accept authority, do as they are told and benefit from the education that is offered them.
	I am a governor at two secondary schools in Havering, which have a genuine comprehensive intake. One is a mixed comprehensive, Gaynes school language college, which achieved specialist school status on the third attempt; the other is the Sacred Heart of Mary girls' school, which is a denominational school. Both have their fair share of special needs pupils and are highly successful.
	Such success stems largely from a dedicated and inspirational head teacher, who in turn inspires everybody else in the school—not just the other teachers, but everybody from the school caretaker to the teaching assistants and ancillary staff. The whole school family is inspired and, through the example of the head teacher, takes on their commitment.
	I visit all the schools in my constituency regularly. In addition to the head teacher and the staff, parents have the greatest single influence on the success of a school. High parental involvement—not just from parents who turn up to parents' night, but from those who belong to the parent teachers association and help in all sorts of ways with the running of the school—has an extremely beneficial effect on the life of the school. The children benefit from knowing that their parents are in and out of school, taking a close interest, making sure that they do their homework and helping them with research, on school trips and in many other ways. School becomes a part of the child's life and is not a separate element; it is part of family life and is discussed at home.
	Where exclusion is resorted to, it is the last resort, and I support our policy of allowing head teachers to have the final decision. Such decisions are not taken lightly and head teachers look on exclusion as a failure. It is the last resort when everything else has failed. They come to the point where they have to take into account the welfare of their staff and the other pupils. A disruptive pupil in the classroom prevents other pupils from benefiting from their lessons and from the teaching and learning process. When head teachers resort to exclusion, the Government should support them in that decision.
	Even at the point of exclusion, parents often do not accept that their child has any faults. They defend their child's bad behaviour to the last, but they do not benefit the child by doing so. When such children deny their bad behaviour, they can never learn to overcome it; they must be helped to take responsibility for their behaviour. In reception classes, I have heard parents say to their children, on their first day at school, "Don't you let them tell you what to do". Those are exceptional circumstances, but such behaviour can start when a child who is knee-high is warned that they do not have to accept authority—they do not have to do as they are told, sit when they are asked to sit or do as the other children are doing. That is an enormous challenge for a teacher trying to establish a routine with a classroom of new pupils. It needs only one child who has been told that they do not have to conform to double the work load of a reception teacher.
	I had some reservations when the Minister for School Standards said that he would help schools to co-operate in accepting excluded pupils. That statement is open to interpretation, but it is quite wrong to force schools to accept excluded pupils if a head teacher feels that it is not to the benefit of the life of the school and its pupils.
	Once pupils have been excluded, it is essential that they immediately have full-time alternative provision. My hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) referred to time lapses of about five months before alternative provision was made available for some pupils. Such children need full-time supervision and education that is appropriate to their needs. If they are no longer able to benefit from full-time mainstream education, they need full-time alternative provision.
	There are all sorts of ways to make such provision, but pupil referral units, which currently cater for only a limited number of pupils, need to be extended. Whether or not we call them turnaround schools, they should provide a flexible curriculum so that children who may not be academically able or who cannot engage with the academic curriculum have alternatives—they could take practical subjects, as well as learning the basic essential skills of reading, writing and numeracy. They would then be able to take their place in the adult world and be fit for employment. They also need tough discipline. Such courses should not be regarded as a reward for bad behaviour. If those units provide courses which students regard as more exciting, such as electronics, plumbing, bricklaying and other practical subjects, they appear to offer a reward for behaving badly in mainstream education. A sensitive approach is therefore needed.
	My local college of further and higher education caters for secondary school pupils, who go there one or two days a week to take courses such as plumbing. However, supervision is required. If students have been unable to conform in mainstream education, they often lack the personal discipline to adapt to a college environment, where there is less discipline than at school. They must be far more motivated—if they play truant in mainstream education they are equally likely to do so in college, but it is less likely to be picked up. I recently visited a school where a large group of such pupils went to their local college of further and higher education to take advantage of the scheme. Because the group was sizable, the school made a teacher available to escort them and stay with them. However, when individual children go to college, they do so unsupervised, so it is not certain that they will arrive or have the independent skills to move around a large building with a large community and take full advantage of the course that they are supposed to be taking. If parents were willing to help with supervision and ensure that students arrived and participated in the allocated course, that would overcome some of those problems.
	The problem of truancy arises from lack of engagement with the curriculum and is part of the spectrum of the discipline. It comes in various shapes and forms. In the primary sector, for example, it is largely condoned by parents. A certain number of pupils in that age group play truant without their parents' knowledge, but are much more likely to do so with parental consent. Some of them play truant on odd days when their parents want to go shopping or visit someone. Others complain about minor ailments, and it is much easier for parents to say, "All right, you can take the day off" than to persuade them to go to school. One of my children had what is euphemistically called school tummy-ache or abdominal migraine every single day in infant school. She hated going to school, and she cried and had a temperature every single day. I dreaded the day that she went to junior school, because I thought that things would get much worse. However, the problem miraculously disappeared. We never identified the cause—it is often difficult to get to the root of why children find going to school difficult, but it is certainly one of the causes of truancy, particularly in primary schoolchildren.
	Secondary schoolchildren engage in internal or selective truancy. They absent themselves from certain lessons, or they register for a lesson but then disappear. Because they have more independence to circulate round the building, it is more difficult to keep tabs on them, so there are greater opportunities for truancy, either for part of a day or for a particular lesson. Prolonged truancy results when children are school-phobic and refuse to attend for long periods. They have emotional problems, and the school, the education authority and perhaps even the medical profession must work together to try to overcome them and prevent those children from missing great chunks of their education. When they take exams, we do not want them to have such a gap in their coursework that their chances of success are greatly reduced.
	Teachers accused of common assault or sexual assault on pupils should be granted anonymity. There is a fatal flaw in the Government's proposals to speed up the process of investigation, as it gives no protection at all to the teacher. Once their name is in the public domain, even if the investigation takes only a month, that is enough to ruin their reputation. It is therefore important to protect them at least until they are charged. I say so advisedly because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) ably explained, if a teacher is found not guilty when a charge is made and a case goes to court, that does them no good. Their reputation is in tatters, and their sense of injustice when waiting for their case to come to court is sometimes sufficient for them to become so depressed and demotivated that they leave the teaching profession altogether.
	One of my friends was an experienced teacher of many years' standing when he was accused by a child of sexual assault. The accusation turned out to be malicious, but the case took two years to come to court. During that period, my friend was suspended and lost not only his reputation, but his income and home. When the case came to court, he was found not guilty, but that did him absolutely no good. It was a further two years before the education authority decided that he was a fit person to go back on the list of supply teachers. He started to apply for jobs, but every time that he got work as a supply teacher, after a few weeks, once he had settled in and the head teacher was extremely pleased with the job that he was doing and the relationship that he had formed with the children, the whispering would start at the school gates. Someone would say, "That's the teacher who was accused of assault, and there's no smoke without fire." The head teacher would therefore have to ask him to leave, even though he was innocent of any offence.
	After several attempts at working as a supply teacher, my friend decided that it was impossible to continue, so he is now lost to the teaching profession. He was also a lifelong foster parent, and had given many decades of service to the scouting movement. He was therefore lost not only to the teaching profession but to the scouting movement and to fostering. Everything that happened resulted from the accusations of a child who was dropped from the football team for misbehaviour. Some children know which trigger words to use. The word "abuse", for example, starts an investigation and triggers a teacher's suspension. The child may not realise the long-term implications of their action, but once that path has been embarked on, things must run their course. The teacher is the victim, so it is essential that we give as much protection as possible to teachers. We must allow for the possibility that occasionally accusations are genuine, but a high proportion of them are false allegations, so we must give maximum protection to the teaching profession.

Barry Sheerman: I am certainly sympathetic to the hon. Lady's case, and most members of the Education and Skills Committee agree that, when things go wrong, they go very wrong indeed and destroy people's lives. However, are there not mechanisms in place to address the problem without the need for legislation? The Conservative party constantly says that there is too much legislation and red tape, but under its proposals we would end up with much more red tape. A better resolution of the problem is possible without legislation.

Angela Watkinson: If only it could be resolved. We hear about more and more cases in which teachers are subject to false allegations. They lose their reputation and are subsequently lost to the teaching profession, so we must protect them from publicity. There is legislation to protect the child. We must balance that by giving equal protection to teachers. I have reservations about maintaining anonymity up to the point at which the teacher is charged. I wonder whether that is enough. I ask hon. Members to give that serious consideration, in the interests of natural justice.

Mark Hoban: The debate has been interesting and well informed, although it is disappointing that, given the importance that head teachers, teachers, parents, governors and pupils place on school discipline, only one Labour Back Bencher spoke in the debate, whereas there were three contributions from the Conservative Benches. Those who read the debate carefully will question the emphasis placed on school discipline by Labour Members. I know that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) and other members of the Select Committee were meeting this afternoon to discuss "Every Child Matters", so that accounts for the absence of some Labour Members, but not all.

Barry Sheerman: This is the second time that an Opposition Day debate has taken place when the Select Committee was meeting. On the first occasion we postponed our meeting, but today we could not. All the inspectors attended and the meeting took a long time to arrange. If the general public were watching the debate on television, they would see that very few hon. Members were present. As this is an Opposition Day, I should have thought that the Conservative Benches ought to be rather fuller than they are.

Mark Hoban: If the hon. Gentleman had been in the Chamber earlier, he would have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) tackling that point very effectively.
	The subject is important and I shall deal with some of the points made in the debate. The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg), spoke about the Government's plan to share the misery among schools by requiring them to take pupils who have been excluded from other schools. In response to an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), the Minister provided a gloss that we were not aware of when he said that that referred only to pupils coming out of pupil referral units. In his speech on 18 November, the Secretary of State made no reference to pupils who have come out of pupil referral units. He spoke about in-year admissions being a headache for head teachers and the guidance that should be created. He also said—this demonstrates his method of intervening in the matter—that
	"I expect all schools—community schools, church schools, grammar schools, foundation schools, academies—to be part of these protocols and I will if necessary legislate to achieve this."
	That reflects the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight that it is not just about pupils who have been excluded from schools. It is about imposing on schools a system of managed moves.
	The hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh), who spoke on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, supported the concept of anonymity up to the point of being charged for teachers who face allegations. However, for some pupils, best practice in our schools is not enough. There are some pupils who will not respond to the strategies that are in place. For those pupils, we need turnaround schools to help modify their behaviour and raise their attainment.
	The hon. Member for Hornchurch (John Cryer), the only Labour Back Bencher who spoke, also supported anonymity before the point of charge for teachers facing allegations. I welcome his support.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells made a thoughtful speech that captured some of the complexities of school discipline and behaviour. He mentioned a school in his constituency where, in order to turn the school around, the head teacher had to expel more pupils. That caused problems but eventually led to an improvement in standards in the school. We need to recognise that the enforcement of rules and discipline is an important part of raising standards in schools that suffer the most. It is not only areas of deprivation that are affected. From talking to head teachers in schools that might be described as being in good areas, I have noticed that they too, at both primary and secondary level, identify problems of behaviour as a growing issue in their schools.
	My hon. Friend made a point that reinforces our plan for 24,000 places in our turnaround schools. He spoke about a delay of four or five months in placing a child who has been excluded in alternative provision. Such a delay is unacceptable. What happens to those children until they are in alternative provision? Are they roaming the streets? Are they being given a proper education? They are outside schools and pupil referral units for too long. Our plans to introduce turnaround schools will close that gap, so that children who are excluded can go quickly into alternative provision that will tackle the causes of their poor behaviour.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight, who speaks with great experience of these matters, having been a teacher and involved in education for a number of years, highlighted the issue of suspension from schools. From speaking to the leaders of teachers unions, it is clear that many were concerned about the lack of support for heads and teachers who are suspended. At times, a decision to suspend a teacher is made quickly, without considering the circumstances, leaving the teacher vulnerable and isolated. As part of any package to protect our teachers, we need to examine the rules surrounding suspension, to give them the support that they need.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) spoke from experience based on her involvement in education and local government. She was right to say, as did other hon. Members on both sides of the House, that exclusion was a last resort. But she also made a point that is often missing from our debates about school discipline about the vital role that parents play in supporting schools. Too often parents undermine the discipline and rules that are in place in our schools. I talk to head teachers who have spent a disproportionate time trying to deal with parents who question the rules.
	We know from our constituency case work and from the statistics that have been quoted throughout the debate that school discipline is a huge problem. A survey of National Union of Teachers members showed that they thought that the highest barrier to effective teaching was effective discipline in our schools. In his opening remarks, the Minister painted a rosy picture, saying that things were getting better. He quoted examples of surveys of the views of head teachers and teachers, yet in a recent survey of public opinion, 72 per cent. of respondents thought that discipline in schools had worsened in recent years. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers believes that the number of assaults is on the increase and that attacks on its members increased fivefold between 1998 and 2002.
	We know also that where there is poor discipline in our schools, it has a corrosive effect on the morale of our teachers. In a survey carried out last year, a third of teachers who thought they would leave the profession within the next five years cited poor behaviour as the cause. Poor behaviour affects not just the morale of teachers, but children who cannot learn because of the actions of one disruptive pupil in a class and the life chances of the child who cannot behave.
	It is clear that we need to take action to improve discipline in our schools. We have set out three ways to tackle the issue. The first is to restore authority to teachers. As has been reflected in the comments of hon. Members during the debate, schools work well where there is a clear set of rules and guidelines that are enforced. I visited a school this summer that had come out of special measures and spoke to pupils about what had changed in that school. They said that rules that were in place before but not enforced were now being enforced. That was the major factor that they saw as having changed the nature of the school and enabled them to learn.
	We need to go one stage further. We need to go beyond the statement of clear expectations to which the Secretary of State referred in his speech of 18 November and have a binding contract between schools, parents and pupils, setting out the clear standards of behaviour that are expected. We should also give head teachers the authority that they need to implement that contract, so that if the rules are breached, it can be a factor in deciding to exclude pupils from school. If parents have signed that binding contract, they should recognise that it is their responsibility not to undermine those rules but support them, both in implementation at school and in the home, so that there is a cycle of virtuous behaviour in school and at home.
	We also believe that, if we are to restore authority to teachers we need to scrap the independent appeals panels. Too often they second-guess the decisions of head teachers. Head teachers spend long periods trying to ensure that they have dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's so that an independent appeals panel cannot overturn their decision. It is a lengthy process that harms the morale of the staff who have to teach the pupil to be expelled, diverts senior management time away from their core task of leading the teaching and learning in the school and forces pupils who want to learn to put up with a child who sets out to disrupt every lesson. Scrapping the independent appeals panels would give head teachers control over discipline and the power to enforce the home-school contracts that are in the interests of all our schools.
	We also need to ensure that proper provision is in place. The Ofsted report published last week on out-of-school education demonstrated that children are being failed by the current system. The report states:
	"Overall, the quality of provision for children and young people out of school, their low attainment, the targeting and monitoring of provision, and the tracking of progress is low."
	We cannot allow that to continue. We have talked about the link between exclusion and crime. Part of the reason for that link is that there is insufficient effort in pupil referral units on changing the behaviour of those children to encourage positive behaviour and break that link. We want children at pupil referral units to be expected to be there all the time. The Government say that every child should have 25 hours of education a week in pupil referral units, but the sad fact is that about half the children receive less than 20 hours a week and those children are being failed. There is no requirement on pupil referral units to publish their attendance figures. No data are collected on whether children are attending them. That needs to change. Our turnaround schools will ensure that attendance is monitored. They will ensure that children receive the education that they deserve. They will ensure that there is a real emphasis on attainment, that children will be entered for exams and that the units will be accountable if the children do not achieve. Turnaround schools are not a dead end but a revolving door. They are there to try to change behaviour and, where that improves, pupils will be given a certificate to enable them to be reintegrated in mainstream schools. For them, there is a real chance to succeed.
	The other aspect of proper provision that we need to think about is that a child with special educational needs is four times more likely to be excluded from school than a child without such needs. It is clear from talking to organisations such as the human rights action centre on education and the independent panel for special education advice that they see a real problem in many of our schools, where the needs of children with special educational needs are not being met. Whether with regard to behavioural issues or conditions such as dyslexia or speech and language difficulties, often the children's needs are unmet. We need to ensure that the right specialist provision is in place and that requires special schools that offer such support to remain open, rather than being closed, as happens now. If we are to meet special educational needs, we need to ensure that there is good-quality provision.
	During the past seven years, the Government have talked tough on discipline. They have spent hundreds of millions of pounds on trying to crack down on truancy and bad behaviour. They have introduced exclusions targets that they had to drop because they added to the disruption in our schools. Truancy targets have not been met. That sums up their policies during the past seven years and it sums up the failure at the heart of the Government: empty promises, poor value for money and meaningless targets.
	It is clear to Opposition Members that school discipline is a vital issue for all those involved in education. Without school discipline, we cannot raise educational opportunity. Without school discipline, few can learn. Without school discipline, highly qualified, well-motivated staff will quit the profession. At the next general election, the people of this country will know that only one party is committed to school discipline and that is the Conservative party.

Ivan Lewis: Whatever differences the debate has highlighted, there is clearly a consensus in the House that school discipline is important in defining the kind of society that we want to help shape. Pupil behaviour is central to every school's mission to raise standards. Schools, along with parents, have a duty to teach young people about the responsibilities as well as the rights that go with citizenship in a civilised society and our approach to discipline can have a powerful effect on inter-generational opportunities and aspirations. The pupils of today will be the parents of tomorrow. These issues affect us all. High standards of behaviour matter to the vast majority of young people who go to school every day determined to make the most of their education. Behaviour affects teachers and support staff, who can have their lives made difficult by a small disruptive element in any class or school community.

Phil Sawford: I have listened carefully to the debate. Head teachers have been described as heroic, and as my brother is a head teacher, I do not want dispute that but I honestly believe that the adjective "heroic" is best applied to classroom teachers, who day in and day out in many difficult schools find their personalities under assault in a way that unless one has experienced it—I speak as an ex-teacher—one cannot empathise with. I am interested in practical measures and a key one is to ensure that parents are involved in everything that a child gets up to. Can we look to a strengthening of the home-school contracts, which are a vital way forward?

Ivan Lewis: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that the relationship between home and school is essential. We can have the best teachers, curriculum and heads, but the support, involvement and engagement of parents is vital.
	It is also true to say that behaviour can shape the destiny of disruptive children whose negative behaviour leads to poor grades and, all too frequently, entry into the criminal justice system. We all know that poor behaviour can eat away at the heart of communities, spilling out of the classroom into the neighbourhood with a small minority engaging in corrosive antisocial behaviour. We all accept the importance of these issues and we have had a range of sensible, mature contributions to today's debate. What has been lacking in quantity has been made up for in quality.
	The hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) cited recent opinion polls in defence of his view that standards of behaviour are in decline. If we use opinion polls as a measure, I am not sure whether Labour is heading for a majority of 120 or 150 at the next general election. He talked about the number of Members who contributed to the debate, but a ratio of 3:1 Opposition and Labour Back Benchers is hardly a ringing endorsement of an Opposition day. My hon. Friends the Members for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) made important interventions, although they did not have the opportunity to make full speeches.
	I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that the question of behaviour and discipline is not exclusively concerned with areas of social deprivation. I also accept that we need to do better in terms of the delays in placing children appropriately when things go wrong at schools. But it is a little rich when he speaks for a party that in government did not insist on any requirement to offer excluded children any quality or quantity of education. Indeed, those were the very children who were roaming the streets, causing havoc, with no sensible Government response.
	The hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) raised the important issue of the need to consider the consequences of dysfunctional families and young people's home lives. He also talked about the exciting flexibilities that are beginning to open up now in terms of the 14 to 16 curriculum. Partnerships between schools and colleges, and between schools, colleges and employers, as the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) mentioned, are trying to motivate young people and turn them on to education, rather than to turn them off. The White Paper, which we will introduce in January in response to the Tomlinson proposals, will directly address the issue of a flexible, responsive and personalised curriculum.
	The hon. Member for Southport and other hon. Members raised the anonymity of teachers, which is clearly an important, delicate and sensitive issue. We have expressed our concern about further legislation, although we are concerned about undue delays. We must not send out the message today that, when children make allegations, the assumption must be that they are not telling the truth. The calibration of the message from this debate is important, because there are many examples of children who have disclosed abuses that turned out to be true. We also know that, throughout history, many children in our society have suffered in silence as a consequence of adult abuse. That does not mean that we should not do everything that we can to be sensitive to those teachers who are subject to allegations that prove to be entirely untrue.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (John Cryer) made a powerful contribution, the central element of which was that Conservative policies do not stack up. How can a party say that it will slash taxes and raise public expenditure on education at the same time? Those two policies do not square with each other. If we add to that the Conservative party's record in government and its disinvestment in public services—we are now paying the price in terms of the social problems that the Government are having to deal with—the British people will simply not buy their policies or find them credible.
	The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) made a powerful, well-informed and authoritative speech, which perhaps explains why he is having to leave the House at the next election. He acknowledged the recent improvements, which are largely the result of not only this Government, but head teachers and teachers up and down the country, and did not perpetuate the myth that the situation is getting worse and that behaviour is deteriorating. He rightly raised the questions of low aspirations, poor parenting and community influence over the behaviour of children and young people. We must address those issues through not only the education system, but joined-up policies.
	The hon. Gentleman also referred to heroic school leaders. We should pay tribute to the many dynamic heads who deal with children of all abilities, potential and behavioural standards on a day-to-day basis and who make their schools work impressively.
	The hon. Gentleman rightly referred to the impact of exclusion. The correlation between exclusion and entry into the criminal justice system is indisputable. We should therefore do everything that we can to minimise the number of children and young people who are excluded from our education system in the first place, while recognising that some will always need to be excluded because their behaviour is unacceptable. The link between young people in the criminal justice system and those who are excluded from school is frightening and should concern us all.
	The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) spoke sensitively about the effect on his constituent of allegations that perhaps turned out not to be true—the consequences were certainly tragic. He also referred to suspension. The difficultly is that suspension, which occurs in all sorts of walks of life and workplaces, is often described as a neutral measure. Its victims do not always feel that the measure is neutral, but people in management and leadership positions must have a way in which to make these difficult choices. I will pass on to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills his powerful defence of his record on behaviour and discipline.
	On the fair distribution of challenging pupils, many pupils do not go from school to a pupil referral unit or out of the school system. Sometimes schools feel that they have no option but to place a child elsewhere when things do not work out. In those circumstances, is it not right that every school in an area should take some responsibility for those challenging children who are not placed in a pupil referral unit but placed in a school setting? Some schools are doing their best to come out of special measures and difficult circumstances, and they are doing incredibly well. Is it right to expect them to deal with all the challenging young people and children in any one community? That cannot be fair or equitable.
	The hon. Gentleman also referred to this Government's chequered history, which is cheeky coming from a party that had 18 years of unbroken rule in which to transform and challenge some of those difficulties.
	The hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) made a thoughtful and informed contribution. She discussed college-school partnerships and made the point that they should be rooted in clear responsibility and accountability. I was worried when she said that whenever she sits on an appeals panel, she always supports the head teacher because if one were on a jury and admitted that approach, one would be in some difficultly. She described how she weakened on one occasion, and I wish that I had been there to see it.
	The hon. Lady rightly pointed to the important contribution that school councils can make. School councils can get young people to discuss behaviour and see the importance of parameters and boundaries. They make a direct difference to standards of behaviour in schools, which is why the Government have said that pupil councils and student councils should be good practice in all our schools. She was also right to emphasise the importance of parental involvement.
	We accept that this issue is important, but the differences between us are simple. We differ on the solutions and on the attempt by the Tories to misrepresent the state of the system. This Government were the first to put attendance and discipline at the heart of school standards. Through our early years education and child care revolution, we are offering interventions that can make a long-term difference. We are focusing on school leadership as the key to creating the right ethos and an effective approach to discipline in every school.
	This Government are ensuring that every classroom teacher has access to training and support on how to manage discipline. We have introduced a focus on the early years of secondary school, where pupil behaviour frequently deteriorates. We are freeing up the curriculum and rebuilding vocational education—and not only for difficult and challenging young people. We also seek a personalised learning offer to motivate young people, not turn them off, and to engage with voluntary organisations and colleges.
	This Government have caused schools to place a much greater priority on school attendance. We have introduced learning support units, learning mentors and police in schools to help manage discipline. We have doubled the number of places in pupil referral units and insisted that permanently excluded pupils should have access to full-time education for the first time. As the hon. Member for Fareham acknowledged, we have reformed exclusion appeal panels to include more people with classroom experience and required those panels to balance the interests of the overall school community with individual pupil's rights. We have introduced a focus on parental responsibility to support schools through parenting contracts and orders and are taking tackling bullying seriously.
	Despite the encouraging signs, we are not complacent and will continue to put behaviour at the heart of our school standards agenda. By contrast, the Tories would introduce a network of sink specialist schools that would produce yet another generation of sink children. They would abolish appeals panels, leading to cases ending in the courts mired in a swamp of litigation and legal bills, which is a charter for lawyers, not for improved discipline.
	The Tories' cuts to early-years provision would ensure that more children and young people behave badly and are excluded. Their refusal to support fair admission means that some schools would face an unfair share of the responsibility to offer high quality education for all. Their introduction of five-plus and reintroduction of the 11-plus would mean young children labelled as "difficult" spending their entire education outside mainstream education.
	A decline in the standards of behaviour, civility and respect should be a source of concern to all those who care about the future of our country. However, politicians who are fit to govern have a duty to present honest solutions that seek to tackle complex, long-term problems in a serious way—solutions that recognise the need for long-term strategies, not short-term headlines. The Conservatives had 18 years of unbroken rule in which they had a unique opportunity to build a different kind of society. Instead, the consequences of their values and policies can be seen all around us. Ill discipline in our schools, antisocial behaviour in our streets and poor parenting are not the sole responsibility of the Conservatives, but the tragedy is that when faced with choices in Government, they turned their back on the big issues that determined the long-term nature and character of this country.
	This Government will not shirk from the big issues. We will continue to put the rights and responsibilities of citizens at the heart of our determination to raise standards and rebuild the fabric of entire communities.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
	The House divided: Ayes 134, Noes 290.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House welcomes the high priority the Government gives to improving behaviour and discipline in schools; supports Government measures to promote positive behaviour by empowering headteachers to deal with badly behaved pupils; celebrates the success that is evident, including attendance being at its highest ever level and Ofsted reporting behaviour satisfactory or better in 99 per cent. of primary schools and 95 per cent. of secondary schools; affirms the Government's commitment to tackle problems that remain; further supports the Government's reform of exclusions to strengthen the power of headteachers; deplores attempts to destroy that system, which would expose headteachers to litigation; welcomes the fact that headteachers, local education authorities and staff are endorsing Government plans for Foundation Partnerships which help schools co-operate to put pupils back on the right track; notes that capacity of pupil referral units has almost doubled under this Government to 13,000 places; considers that to multiply this capacity by six would not represent cost-effective spending on behaviour; deplores the suggestion that privatised borstals are the answer to every problem; endorses the action that the Government is taking to keep drugs and knives out of schools; further endorses the Government's drive to ensure that parents play their part in ensuring that children attend school regularly and behave well; further supports the Government's reforms for dealing with allegations against teachers swiftly and fairly; and agrees with the Government that no pupil has the right to disrupt the education of others and that every pupil, not just the few, should have the opportunity to succeed in life and to contribute.

Family Justice

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I announce to the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Theresa May: I beg to move,
	That this House agrees that on the separation of parents, priority should be given to the interests of the children; believes that it is in the best interests of all children for both parents to be fully involved in their upbringing and hence that separated parents should each have a legal presumption of reasonable contact with their children, except where a child's safety would be at risk, so that children are able to benefit from being parented by both their parents, as well as from contact with any grandparents and extended family members able and willing to play a role in their upbringing; regrets the Government's opposition to such a legal presumption, which will lead to yet more children being denied access to both their parents and their extended families; views with concern the Government's failure to implement the Early Intervention Project; and calls on the Government to replace the legal term 'contact' with 'parenting time', to introduce a legal presumption of co-parenting and to introduce early intervention in parental separation, with court-backed mediation and guidelines on parenting-time.
	The subject is a highly charged and immensely sensitive issue for us to debate. We are dealing with not only matters of law but people's feelings and lives. Most important, we are dealing with the lives of children, who look to us as politicians, to the courts and, most fundamentally, to their parents to protect them.
	Family justice has become clouded with purple powder and people dressed as Batman, but we must not forget that the fundamental reason for debating the issue is to ensure the best outcome for our children. I accept that all hon. Members aspire to that, yet the stark reality is that too many children lose contact with parents who love them and too many families are torn apart, often spending miserable years trapped in our family court system, which offers little light at the end of a long tunnel.
	Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, president of the family division, admits that 40 per cent. of children lose all contact with the non-resident parent in two years. Sadly, there are some cases in which one parent simply walks away from the family, but there are also many cases in which one parent finds the system weighted against them. All those cases involve children who have lost a parent and parents who have lost a child whom they love. The bonds are easily broken and difficult, if not impossible, to mend.
	If the figures are true, we have a fundamental problem with the way in which our family justice system serves the children whom it purports to protect. Perhaps we now come to the first misconception of the Government's approach. The amendment refers to the need to ensure that the interests of children are paramount. I am sure that the Minister will repeat that. Our motion states that we are committed to protecting the child's best interests and that, when safety is not a factor, both parents should be actively involved in the child's upbringing. Let me be clear: we do not believe that the two proposals are mutually exclusive. We are determined to protect children from abuse and we are not prepared to jeopardise safety. However, we believe that the child's best interests must come first and that it is in those best interests for both mother and father to be involved in the lives of their children. Unlike the Government, we do not believe that one precludes the other.

Hilton Dawson: Given that, sadly, domestic violence remains drastically under-reported, given that child abuse often goes unnoticed or unheeded and given that the voices of children are not satisfactorily heard in our family justice system, how does the right hon. Lady intend to ensure that children are protected?

Theresa May: The hon. Gentleman is right that we have cause for concern about domestic violence and child abuse. However, child abuse does not happen simply when there are divorced parents. Sadly, it can happen in a variety of circumstances. The campaign that The Sun launched today with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children highlights the many cases of child abuse that occur. We are not suggesting that, where one partner has been the perpetrator of domestic violence or child abuse, they should have the automatic right of access that others should have. The hon. Gentleman must accept that there are many cases going through our courts today involving fathers—and, in some cases, mothers—who have been estranged and prevented from having contact with their children, not because of domestic violence or abuse but simply because the system allows a parent to use their child as a weapon or a prize, and to deny access to the other parent.

Hilton Dawson: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Theresa May: No, I will make a little more progress before I give way again.
	Why, in the vast majority of cases, is a parent who is deemed fit to look after, care for and protect their child until the moment they decide to divorce suddenly forced to beg the court for time with that child? We believe that that illustrates the fundamental flaw in the family court system.

Hilton Dawson: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Theresa May: I want to make a little progress. I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman later.

Hilton Dawson: This is absolute nonsense.

Theresa May: The hon. Gentleman may mutter that from a sedentary position, but I suggest that he reads the e-mails and letters in my postbag, and listens to the cases that come into my constituency advice clinic. They involve fathers who cannot have proper contact with their children because of the operation of the family justice system.
	I am happy to support the view that the Government express in their Green Paper on parental separation. The hon. Gentleman might be interested to know that the Green Paper states:
	"The current way in which the courts intervene in disputed contact cases does not work well".
	Those are not my words. That is a direct quote from the Government's Green Paper. We also emphatically agree with the Government's description of what should happen in court:
	"Both parents are equal and both should continue to have a worthwhile relationship with their children after separation, so long as it is safe and in the child's best interests."

Vera Baird: It is perfectly clear that the Conservatives' motion would not only demote the paramountcy of the child's welfare and make it a mere "priority" but introduce a legal presumption that any parent should be entitled to contact, irrespective of what they had done, as long as they did not present a danger. Is that really what the right hon. Lady intends? Will she explain why she is specifically removing the paramountcy of the child's welfare?

Theresa May: I admire many of the speeches that the hon. and learned Lady has made in the House, but the comments that she has just made are not worthy of her. If she reads the motion, she will see that we continue to give priority to the best interests of the child, and we expressly state that we are talking about cases in which safety is not a concern.

Vera Baird: The right hon. Lady is seeking to judge me harshly; I assume that is for reasons of self-defence. It is perfectly clear that the word "paramount" has been removed from the Conservatives' motion. "Paramount" means that the welfare of the child must come top, first and in front of everything else. "Priority" is a much softer word; it suggests that the interests of the child must take priority only over some things. I shall ask her a straightforward question: does she intend to demote the welfare of the child to below the legal right of any parent to have contact? That is what the motion says.

Theresa May: The answer to the question whether I intend to demote the interests of the child is no. If the hon. and learned Lady reads the motion, she will see that we are not doing that.
	The difference between my party and the Government on this issue is that the Government consider that it is not in the best interests of the child to have proper contact with and access to both parents. I consider that the best parent for any child is both parents, and we intend to put a system in place that will allow such access.

Jonathan R Shaw: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Theresa May: No, I want to make some progress.
	The problem for so many parents who are desperate for proper contact with their children is that the Government have been willing to talk about co-parenting but unwilling to put it into practice. They speak the language of reform, but do not deliver. In rejecting our proposals for co-parenting, they have clearly demonstrated that their Green Paper was simply all talk.
	Children who go through divorce have already lost out, and we must not add to their distress by putting them through a court process that results in them forfeiting one of their parents as well. On 27 April 1989, the Minister presenting the Bill that was to become the Children Act 1989 affirmed:
	"New orders are introduced to reflect our emphasis on encouraging parents to participate fully in the child's upbringing."—[Official Report, 27 April 1989; Vol. 151, c. 1111.]
	Nine years later, the Lord Chancellor's Department reconsidered the issue, but came to the same conclusion, saying:
	"The Children Act 1989 seeks to encourage both parents to continue to share in their children's upbringing, even after separation or divorce."
	That is a line that the Government rightly adopt in their 2004 Green Paper. Indeed, the Green Paper takes the language of joint parental involvement further than before. It states:
	"Children need the support of their parents to thrive . . . Co-operative parenting arrangements are what is needed in order to promote the interests of the child".
	I do not believe that anyone, on either side of the House, could take issue with those laudable sentiments. However, we must ask ourselves whether any parent can be said to participate fully in the life of a child whom they hardly know. Can parents share in the upbringing of children whom they see for only two hours a fortnight? Does a brief visit for a morning a couple of times a month help children to thrive? Are we seriously suggesting that the growing army of "McDonald's parents", whose only contact is a fortnightly lunch in a fast-food restaurant, are parenting their children in the correct way? I do not think that any parent worth their salt would accept that. They regard such arrangements as inadequate. Moving from common sense to professional discourse, we see that child development specialists do not accept that suggestion either.
	The Children Act cannot be said to encourage parents to continue to share in their children's upbringing when, as every MP knows, it commonly takes years of agony in the family courts to get contact increased. The Act does not deliver on its intentions. There is a simple explanation for that, which is wrapped up in the simple word "contact". Perhaps I should remind the House what "contact" means in the context of a family law dispute. Contact is any contact at all, no matter how short or infrequent. An order for one hour's contact a week is contact. An order for one hour a month under supervision is contact. Contact confined to a contact centre is contact. That is why I am asking the House to support our calls for a drastic and fundamental change in the way in which we approach children and separation in the family justice system.
	Case law provides for a presumption of contact, but it does not provide for a presumption of reasonable contact. Such a presumption is, however, innate in the Children Act. The stated and agreed objectives of that Act cannot be delivered without the presumption of reasonable contact, which is why we are calling for a presumption of co-parenting, and the right of both parents to be fully and equally involved in the lives of their children.

Richard Allan: I have been listening carefully to the right hon. Lady, both today and in the interviews she has given on this subject. In trying to decide whether to support her proposals, I need to establish whether, in a case in which safety was not an issue, if a court received clear advice that reduced or no contact was in the best interest of the child, the court would be able to follow that advice. Or would it, under the right hon. Lady's proposals, be required to maintain contact even if it were not in the best interest of the child?

Theresa May: The courts would indeed be able to follow that advice, although I suspect that the number of cases in which safety was not an issue and in which contact would not be in the best interest of the child would be very limited. The problem is that the current system does not enable the parent without residence to build up the loving bond and relationship that the Children Act 1989 implied.

Hilton Dawson: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Theresa May: No, I want to move on.
	Some people say that we are simply pandering to the demands of militant dads' groups, and radical groups such as Fathers 4 Justice. The Minister nods. Let me make it absolutely clear that my party does not in any way condone the actions of such militant groups. We do, however, understand the pain and hurt of a group of parents who are being denied a relationship with their children. We do not advocate splitting a child down the middle 50:50, but we do believe that the child has a right to proper contact with both parents.
	Sadly, normal parents and grandparents are being prevented from caring for their children and grandchildren, or in some cases prevented from seeing their children and grandchildren at all. That is why we propose the presumption of co-parenting and the right for both parents to be involved in bringing up their children, ensuring that the law serves the best interests of the child. Children deserve to see both parents.
	If the Minister does not accept that the law is biased against non-resident parents, I shall give her an example of how it operates. Two weeks ago, I visited Lancashire where I met a group of women living in a women's refuge. There were women living together—not through choice, but because they were fleeing violent partners. One of the young women explained that she did not have her children with her because the court did not consider a refuge a suitable place to bring up children, so the children were with their violent father. That, I think, is a prime example of how the system discriminates against non-resident parents. All too often, the resident parent is allowed to deny access, safe in the knowledge that they will be able to frustrate the other parent for years in the courts before contact is resumed.
	If the Minister does not agree with my view that such delays are commonplace, let me tell her about a constituent who came to my advice clinic a few weeks ago. He had been denied access to his three-year-old daughter. When he sought advice from his solicitor, he was told it was likely to take nine months before his case was heard. That is nine months' separation in the life of a three-year-old child. With a child so young, a week is a long time in their development. Imagine how damaging to those precious parent-child bonds a separation covering almost a third of the child's life could be.
	We have unveiled a strategy for radical institutional change to end the misery of the family courts. For parents who have reached the stage of issuing legal proceedings on contact, our proposals include a number of court-backed mechanisms, including clear guidelines prepared by child development experts in conjunction with the judiciary to outline the range of beneficial post-separation arrangements; mandatory information sessions to make the court-backed guidelines available to parents before the hearing; mandatory mediation before the first hearing, conducted in the knowledge of what the courts are likely to order if they cannot reach an agreement; and family courts working to expert guidelines acknowledging that the child's needs are best served by "frequent and continuous" contact with both parents. In short, we are offering a certainty and a predictability for parents and children in a time of huge upheaval.

Hilton Dawson: I am interested in what the right hon. Lady is saying. I do not dispute the good intentions on both sides of the House, but will she please tell me how the delicate, careful and constructive work that needs to be done in any system of the sort that she envisages would be done if, as is reported today, she is proposing the complete abolition of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service?

Theresa May: Indeed, it would be done by trained mediators. That is one of the issues with CAFASS: its staff are not trained mediators and a lot of people involved with it come from an entirely different background. Precisely because these matters are sensitive and precisely because it is necessary to be able to act sensitively, it is important that those who do this work are specifically trained in it.

Hilton Dawson: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Theresa May: No, I have given way to the hon. Gentleman twice already. Other Members wish to speak in the debate.
	The Government have attacked our proposals, and indeed refused to back our amendment on co-parenting, which was tabled as part of the recent Children Act debate. I am sorry that the Minister chose not to comment on the validity of or the arguments about our amendment—[Interruption.] The Minister, from a sedentary position says, "Oh yes I did." I have to tell her that a vitriolic attack on my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) does not constitute a proper debate on the arguments in the case in point.
	The Minister has rejected our proposals, but this is not the first time that she has chosen to reject sensible and workable ideas to reform the family justice system. In 2002, a package of reforms known as early interventions was developed. These reforms, which include fully defined parenting plans, gained the support of the Family Law Bar Association, the High Court judiciary, the chair of the Solicitors Family Law Association, parenting groups and, most important of all, child mental health specialists.
	When the presumption of reasonable contact is introduced, the system is rebalanced so that the resident parent knows that they cannot use the child as a weapon against the other parent. The result is that the right case outcomes are achieved quickly, instead of the wrong case outcomes being achieved slowly, but that entails a wholesale reversal of procedure. So, this was quite a nut to crack, but the job was done.
	On 8 October 2003, the early interventions reforms went to the Government with across-the-board support. The hon. Mrs. Justice Bracewell, of the High Court family division, said:
	"It would be incomprehensible if the Pilot Project did not receive official sanction from the DfES and the Department for Constitutional Affairs."
	Yet within weeks of early interventions being approved, the project was destroyed in Whitehall. I understand that its originators were never approached or consulted. I believe that the early interventions papers never reached the new Whitehall design team. The project was discussed as a "brand name" to be discarded.
	Ministers were reassured that the early interventions project was still under construction, albeit under a different name. So, one project was swapped for another in a tableau worthy of "Yes Minister". The family resolutions project, which has just emerged from Whitehall, is the opposite of the early interventions project that was submitted and approved. Family resolutions is not a legal reform at all; it is the same old failing mechanism with a glossy new title.
	Family resolutions is a new scheme to continue the existing system. It does not change the legal system; it is a public relations exercise—more spin from the Government. Parents will receive leaflets advising them not to go to court. They will see videos. There will be more "flexible levers" and telephone helplines. Parents will be sent to "anger management classes", presumably to learn how to manage their fury at the Government's failure to provide the family justice system they need, but what they will not get are guidelines on how much parenting time the court expects them to agree on, nor will they get any rights giving them a say in how their child is bought up.
	Instead of it taking two months for parents to get a first hearing, it will take five. That is the difference, and there is evidence that the family resolutions pilot project simply is not working, which brings me to the Government's final contradiction—the Green Paper.
	The Green Paper was trumpeted as the Government's answer to parents' problems—more talk from Government, appearing to say all the things that parents trapped in the family court system wanted to hear. I quote the 30 November edition of The Independent:
	"Fathers are to be given better access rights to their children in the event of family break-up under new proposals from the Government",
	but fathers will not be given better access rights. The Minister knows it, and I know it. All those anxious parents and grandparents have been misled. The promises made in the Green Paper are incapable of fulfilment.
	The Green Paper says that
	"co-operative parenting arrangements are what is needed to promote the interests of the child",
	yet the Government are refusing our calls for a presumption on co-parenting. Under the Government's scheme, not only will there not be a presumption of reasonable contact, there will be no presumption of contact at all. Presumably, parents who want to see their children will be asked, "Why?".
	The Government do not have to accept my word; they can take their own. On 29 April, in a letter to the chairman of the Coalition for Equal Parenting, Lord Filkin said:
	"The Early Interventions project which was developed by New Approaches to Contact (NATC) and others, is being developed and taken forward."
	The Green Paper said:
	"We will develop"
	parenting plans
	"and will provide specific examples of contact arrangements which are known to work well for parents",
	but let us consider what the Department for Education and Skills itself had to say in a standard letter written this November, when it realised that it could no longer pretend that the two projects are the same:
	"The Family Resolutions Project has been designed in line with the Children Act 1989. The Act does not prescribe parenting patterns, nor does it have a legal presumption of contact. These are two ways by which Family Resolutions is distinctive from the Early Interventions project proposed by New Approaches to Contact".
	Listening to the Government, the two projects are not only the same, but different. The judiciary, Queen's counsel and Lords of Appeal are still being assured that the Government are progressing the early interventions reforms, which they have scrapped. Yet again, the Government have been shown to be all talk and no action.
	I said that this was a sensitive issue: it is a sensitive issue because it deals with the lives of children; because it deals with the loving bond that is developed between parents and their children; and because many children in this country today find themselves separated from a parent or grandchildren by a system that enables the parent with whom the children reside to use the child as a weapon against the other parent. Many people find themselves on the receiving end of a family justice system that does not deliver justice for them or their family.
	We have seen from recent statements that the Minister believes that the best parent is the state. We recognise, however, what experts and common sense have always told us—that the best parent for any child is both parents. It is time for a family court system that protects children and respects parents, and it is time for a Government who will deliver it.

Margaret Hodge: I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	"believes that, on the separation of parents, the welfare of the children should be the paramount consideration in any family court proceedings concerning the upbringing of a child, and recognises that children benefit from a meaningful relationship with both parents after separation, so long as it is safe; congratulates the Government on the proposals in its consultation document Parental Separation: Children's Needs and Parents' Responsibilities, which addresses the realities of the reform that is needed in family justice, including its commitment to legislate to improve facilitation of contact and enforcement of contact orders; notes that the use of the term 'parenting time' in place of 'contact' fails to recognise the important role of the extended family, including children's siblings, in children's upbringing and that contact orders are not only made in relation to parents; and deeply regrets the official Opposition's view that any presumption is needed in law beyond the principle that the welfare of the child is paramount."
	I agree with the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) that the issues surrounding residence and contact for separated parents and their children are both contentious and high profile. I agree with her, too, that that is in part for understandable and legitimate reasons. However, I regret deeply the recent attempts by Members of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition to try to gain political advantage on the back of the personal trauma and unhappiness of many families.
	Working to establish rational and just policies in this highly emotionally charged area of public policy is both difficult and challenging. But that is what the Government are determined to do.
	We know that more than 150,000 children each year experience the emotional distress of their parents' divorce. We know that two out of three of those children are under 10, and one in four is under five. We know that around one in every five children is likely to have to go through their parents' separation and divorce before they reach the age of 16.
	Given those figures, it is also important, in terms of tonight's debate, to acknowledge that most parents who separate and divorce deal with the issues involving parental responsibility, residence and contact between themselves, without recourse to the courts. In fact, nine out of 10 do so.

Jonathan R Shaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware that when the Office for National Statistics examined contact arrangements, it found that the best arrangements involved good, frequent contact, and that when people were asked what would improve the situation, they said that it would be more contact. Often, it was mothers, who had residence, who wanted more contact, rather than fathers. We need to keep the issue in proportion.

Margaret Hodge: Indeed. The other research finding is that it is not contact per se that supports children's best interests but the quality of the contact. The quality of the contact is always better when parents can determine how they manage contact outside court processes.

Alan Beith: The right hon. Lady will know, because she will give evidence to it, that the Constitutional Affairs Committee is currently considering this issue, and that a great deal of evidence is coming forward. What worries me in this debate is both the tendency of the Opposition to assert that certain things are the answer, and the danger that she might feel that she must rule out options that ought to be considered, when a great deal of evidence is still coming forward on a matter that affects a lot of people.

Margaret Hodge: I give the right hon. Gentleman my absolute assurance that I would be the last person to rule out any ideas that would enable us to manage these difficult issues with the interests of children at their heart. Opposition Members are failing to put the interests of children first.

Dominic Grieve: The right hon. Lady will recollect that I have previously proposed an amendment that maintained the paramountcy of the welfare of the child but encouraged equal parenting. When I proposed that to her in the debate on 2 November, I said:
	"I hope that the Minister will accept the new clause in that spirit, and I look forward to hearing a positive response from her."
	Her only reply was three minutes of vitriolic abuse, saying that the policy was
	"ill-thought out, hastily constructed and opportunistic".—[Official Report, House of Commons, 2 November 2004; Vol. 426, c. 234]
	Can we have a sensible debate on this subject this evening?

Margaret Hodge: We can indeed. It is interesting, however, that the two Opposition Members who are responsible for the debate tonight do not agree. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead said in her opening remarks that she was not in favour of equal parenting, which is commonly understood as dividing children's time equally between their parents. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), however, has said that I refuse to acknowledge the importance of equal parenting.

Peter Luff: I agree with the Minister that this should not be a matter of deep party political controversy, but she has scored more party political points in her opening five minutes than my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) did in her whole speech? If she really wants a non-partisan debate, I suggest that she reflects on her use of words in this debate.

Margaret Hodge: If the hon. Gentleman means that I am opposing the paucity of the arguments of his hon. Friends, he is correct.
	Nine out of 10 families, when they separate or divorce, deal with the issues of parental responsibility between themselves. That does not mean that there is not pain for everyone involved; of course there is. Nobody wins when the relationship between parents breaks down. Everybody must give up something. There is anguish for all concerned, particularly the children, whose voices are all too often not heard when issues affecting their future are decided. With more parents ending up in the divorce courts, the problems are affecting more families.
	Furthermore, there is no doubt that as family life changes, with more parents sharing the day-to-day responsibilities of caring for their children, finding a resolution that everybody feels is fair to them becomes more difficult. But in trying to support those parents whose relationship is so embittered that they cannot settle contact arrangements between themselves, we should focus on what we can learn from those who have managed to sort it out without going anywhere near the courts, not try to pretend that there is a magic legal formula which we, as legislators, can invent, and which will make all those involved feel that they have an even-handed and just settlement. Whatever we do or do not do, there will continue to be fathers who feel unjustly excluded from their children's lives and mothers who are frightened for themselves and their children because of their experience of violence in the home. Most importantly, there will be children who suffer because of the conflict between their parents and because they cannot spend all their time with both parents.
	If and when the courts are asked to intervene, however, the Government continue to hold the unequivocal view, which was held by the Conservative party when it was in government, that the child's welfare must be paramount. For us, there are no ifs and buts about it. In settling these difficult issues, the child's welfare must come first.

Theresa May: Will the Minister give way?

Margaret Hodge: In a minute. [Hon. Members: "Give way."]
	In the summer, it seemed to us that the Tories, as the hon. Member for Beaconsfield has done now, were flirting with those who advocate equal parenting or 50:50 parenting. They chose to join—

Dominic Grieve: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Lady knows well from past debates that I have never made any reference to equal parenting in the context of 50:50 splits. Is it therefore in order for her to mislead the House with further invective, rather than engage in rational debate?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order for the Chair; it is a matter of debate. If I may say so, it would be better if the debate were conducted in more moderate terms.

Margaret Hodge: I have just been accused of misleading the House. I certainly did not. According to any common understanding of the term "equal parenting", it means a 50:50 division. If Opposition Members choose to join those who focus on adults' competing rights rather than concentrating on parents' responsibilities and their children's needs, they are taking the wrong route.

Theresa May: I am grateful to the Minister for finally giving way. She and I have taken part in a number of interviews about this, and she has taken every opportunity to raise the 50:50 issue. My colleagues and I have made it clear that we have never suggested a 50:50 split. Will the Minister now withdraw her statement that that is our party's policy? Will she also tell us how it is in children's best interests for proper contact with both parents not to be resumed?

Margaret Hodge: I will come to that last point shortly, because we believe that when it is safe that should happen; but the right hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Beaconsfield must be the only two people in the world who do not interpret equal parenting as 50:50. I agree with the right hon. Lady about one thing, however. It appears that since the summer, Members in the typical modern Tory mould have withdrawn from what I consider to be an extreme position: the view that children should be divided like possessions, and shared equally between their parents. I welcome that retreat, but in calling for us to introduce a legal presumption of something that they call co-parenting, Conservative Members are perpetrating a con on distressed parents who desperately look to others to resolve their bitter conflicts. If co-parenting means an attempt to establish two paramount principles, that argument is conceptually flawed. Either the children's interests come first, or the parents' rights do. The Conservatives should make up their minds and come clean.

Dominic Grieve: As the Minister will know, section 1 of the Children Act 2004 contains a presumption of the paramountcy of the child's best interests, but section 2 provides for a presumption, in ordinary circumstances, that parental responsibility lies with both natural parents. Is the Minister suggesting that whenever a child is born there should be an examination, there and then, of the paramountcy of the child's welfare, and a conclusion that the child should not be with its natural parents who are together? As it stands, section 2 qualifies the paramountcy of the child's welfare.

Margaret Hodge: The hon. Gentleman is right. That is another reason why I fail to understand why we need the legislative change that the Conservatives propose.
	Let us pursue this argument. If the term "co-parenting" means that Conservative Members believe a child's welfare, following its parents' separation, is best promoted by a continuing relationship with both parents whenever that is safe, all they are doing is restating the existing legal position, established by case law. Pretending that this is something new is simply misleading, and raising false hopes. Case law has established that mothers and fathers have equal standing before the courts, and that both parents are critically important to the child. There is no gender bias in the courts, and I challenge the Opposition to demonstrate that there is.

Theresa May: Is the Minister trying to tell us that she is against the legal presumption of co-parenting because she thinks that it acts against the paramount interests of the child, or is she saying that she is against changing the law to introduce it specifically because it is already there?

Margaret Hodge: I am saying that it is unnecessary, I am saying that it is misleading, and I am saying that it would confuse. The right hon. Lady did not take up my challenge to demonstrate that there was bias in the courts' administration of the system, as she pretended. I have no evidence of such bias in the legal system.
	Case law has established that unless there are cogent reasons against it, children are entitled to know, have the love of, and enjoy companionship and time with both their parents. That is why contact is refused in fewer than 1 per cent. of cases heard in the courts. We already have a legal framework that recognises that children's interests are best met by the maintaining of a relationship with both parents when that is safe.

Hilton Dawson: Surely the strength of the existing system is that it looks to the best interests of each child. Co-parenting would impose a particular model on a particular relationship without attention being paid to individual needs, developmental stages, specific family circumstances and numerous other factors.

Margaret Hodge: I agree with the point that my hon. Friend has made so eloquently. The proposed amendments to the statute add nothing to the existing arrangement that both parents, where they have parental responsibility, are equal before the law. What those amendments do is hoodwink some parents into believing that things will change.
	I must say, with regret—because there has been cross-party agreement on the issue in the past—this is low-level politics at its worst. It is a desperate quest for votes on a false and meaningless prospectus. It could also divert us from tackling the many problems that we know exist, not in the legal structure but in the way in which the current system works in practice for many parents. We are trying to tackle those problems with our Green Paper, our programme of reform and our draft Bill, which will be discussed in the current Session. The Tories' proposed measures would also confuse everyone involved by failing to assert that—as my hon. Friend the. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) said—the welfare of the child can and must remain the principal overriding concern.

Dominic Grieve: The Minister will recall an amendment that I tabled to the Children Bill, which maintained the principle in clause 1 that paramount consideration should be given to the welfare of the child, but proposed another clause providing that unless the contrary could be shown, the courts should act on the presumption that the child's welfare is best served through residence with its parents; if its parents are not living together, through residence with one of them; and through both of them being as fully and equally involved in parenting as possible. How could that interfere with the paramountcy of the child's welfare?

Margaret Hodge: Again, the hon. Gentleman has used the word "equally". I understand that to mean dividing children equally between their parents. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman did not mean that, perhaps when he winds up the debate he will tell us in what way his proposition alters current case law and the way in which courts approach the issue.
	In embarking on our reforms, we have acknowledged the existence of legitimate grievances that we need to address. As the right hon. Member for Maidenhead said, there are a lot of angry people who feel wronged and frustrated by the system. I agree that our legal processes take too long, and I agree that all too often the contexts in which decisions are made are too adversarial. Some non-resident parents, usually fathers, are unable to maintain a relationship with their children because of deliberate actions taken by the resident parents. There are some mothers and children who feel at risk because of the violence of the father, and there are some fathers who also feel at risk. At the same time, there are real limits to the efficacy of any action that the state can take to resolve the entrenched conflict and deep suspicion that characterise a number of the situations that require resolution through the courts, and we should not pretend otherwise. Far from believing that we are the best parent in this context, I believe that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead believes that she is.
	What we can do, what we are doing and what we will continue to do is to try to support, through both conciliation and mediation, ways in which parents can resolve their disputes in the interests of their children. We want to support parents, to divert them from litigation in the court and to help them settle their differences outside the court. We have proposed concrete real-world reforms, which the motion fails to do. For example, we are revising our parenting plan materials, which the right hon. Lady chose to decry. They are there to help parents, with clear advice and information, to think through realistic options in a co-operative way to settle issues on contact. This is not about the Government, with so-called "guidelines on parenting time" attempting to dictate from the centre what works, when we cannot know the circumstances of any individual case. We want to show in practice the sort of contact arrangements that work well for children of different ages and in different circumstances, without trying to be prescriptive, as the right hon. Lady would have us be about individual cases.
	That is why we want to ensure the availability of another initiative that the right hon. Lady decried: the availability of a telephone advice service that will provide practical support to parents when they need it. That is why we want to introduce more mediation, building on the successful expansion of publicly funded mediation cases, which are now helping about 5 per cent. of separating couples to reach agreement. That is why we want to support good practice among lawyers in this sector, with improved accreditation of solicitors who provide advice on family matters, and by encouraging lawyers to work more collaboratively, with the aim of securing a resolution outside courts, rather than a win in the courts.
	That is why, far from abolishing the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, we want to make greater use of its officials to promote the resolution of contact issues through conciliation, as is already happening successfully in the courts in Essex. To suggest, as the Opposition have, that we have abandoned what was known as the early interventions initiative is simply a travesty of the truth. What we have done is reflect on the experience from Florida and other jurisdictions with a group of experts.

Theresa May: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Margaret Hodge: I will when I have finished this bit.
	What we have done is adapt those proposals to create our own family resolutions pilot project, so that it works in the British context. We have not failed to implement the scheme. We have simply sensibly tailored it, so that it has the chance of working in our courts.

Theresa May: The right hon. Lady says that the Government have put the project in place. Perhaps she will explain why it was that, in November, an official in the families in change team for vulnerable children at the Department for Education and Skills sent letters making it absolutely clear that
	"There are ways by which Family Resolutions is distinctive from the Early Interventions project".
	She says that she has not abandoned the early interventions project, yet she is not actually putting it in place.

Margaret Hodge: The right hon. Lady may not accept this, but it seems total common sense that we adapt a particular scheme to meet the British circumstances and the British courts. Perhaps it will help if I give an example. In Florida, early intervention is compulsory. In the United Kingdom, our family resolutions pilot project is not. Our scheme reflects that difference; it has been deliberately changed to reflect the difference.
	In our view, the family resolutions project will work only if people want to engage with it. There is, of course, a clear expectation among the judges, legal advisers, court staff and the welfare organisations that the normal procedures involve participation in the scheme, except in cases of domestic violence. Far from the scheme having failed, we have only just embarked upon it. We will see how it goes and decide on national roll-out after we have evaluated how successful the intervention is.

Peter Bottomley: The Minister is being more specific now. Can she explain how the scheme that she will bring forward differs from the one that she inherited from the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which is a rather more interesting question than how it differs from the Florida experiment?

Margaret Hodge: The family resolutions pilot project was developed by the Department for Education and Skills working with colleagues in the Department for Constitutional Affairs to ensure that it was amended to reflect British circumstances. That seems such a common-sense approach that I cannot for the life of me understand why Conservative Members seek to mislead people, if I may say so, by suggesting that we are not pursuing an early intervention to prevent people from entering into litigation, which often only worsens matters.

Hilton Dawson: There is nothing more strange than the Opposition in search of a conspiracy theory, but have not Australia and Canada taken American models and adapted them to their circumstances, almost in exactly the way that this Government have, reflecting the fact that no one has a monopoly on best practice and that we are all trying to learn from each other?

Margaret Hodge: Of course. I am amazed that I had to justify a sensible adaptation to British circumstances.
	We all recognise that there is much we can do to improve the court processes. If parents have to wait for months, attitudes become even more entrenched and the possibility of an agreed resolution between the parents diminishes. That is why the judges, under Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, are seeking, for example, to improve the listing of cases, are looking to provide greater judicial continuity and are ensuring a rapid return to court if things continue to go wrong.
	That is why we want to change the role of CAFCASS so that its officials spend less time writing lengthy reports for court hearings and more time using their expertise, knowledge, skills and training to promote conciliation between warring parents and to ensure that the voice of the child is heard as arrangements are determined. That is why we are proposing a range of additional levers for the courts to ensure that both parents put their children first and comply with court-ordered contact arrangements.
	That is why we are, for the first time ever, ensuring proper funding of contact centres and ensuring the expansion of services that support children in enjoying contact with their parents. Indeed, we hope that many of our children's centres and extended schools will provide the facilities to enable parents to maintain contact with their children in safe surroundings.
	The issues that we are addressing are vital. They touch the lives of tens of thousands of children every year. Thankfully, the vast majority of parents settle these issues without recourse to the courts, so that the children's interests are better promoted and protected, but the last thing these children need is a cosmetic change to the law. What they do need are real and substantial reforms to try to make the system work better for them. What they want is for their voice to be heard.
	Children want, in most cases, to maintain a loving and continuing relationship with both parents. They do not want to choose between the love of their mother and that of their father. Children do not want to become a weapon in their parents' armoury as they pursue bitter vendettas against each other. Nor should those children become a weapon in the political armoury of political parties as they seek votes. That, I regret to say, is what I believe the Opposition are attempting to do. Either they want to change the law to give precedence to parents' rights over children's interests—a step that would clearly be wrong—or they are content with the current legal framework that recognises the paramountcy of the child's welfare and acknowledges that it is best promoted by maintaining contact with both parents, in which case we do not need a change in the law. The Tories should not con parents by pretending that they are doing that.
	If the Tories really wanted improvements for children and for separating or divorcing parents, they would support our amendment. They would engage constructively in the discussions on our proposals in the Green Paper. They would support our programme of reform; our moves to promote conciliation and mediation; our reforms to improve the workings of the courts; and the proposal that we will publish in the form of a draft Bill to ensure better compliance with court-ordered contact. They would stop trying to play politics in this complex and highly emotionally charged area of people's lives and recognise the need for a commitment to genuine action on children's needs. They would vote with us tonight. I urge every responsible Member of this House to do just that.

David Heath: I have to say that this has been a less than edifying occasion so far—I rather feared that it might be when I saw the subject tabled for debate. I suspected a slight odour of bandwagon about it, which is unfortunate. The sensitivity of the issue—a point made by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May)—means that it is perhaps inappropriate for the sort of politicisation that we have heard so far this evening. If anything requires consensus, not only between political parties but between all those who operate within or are consumers of the system, it is this. As has rightly been said, we are dealing with extraordinarily difficult issues for people who have to go through a court process at their most vulnerable time, and the interests of children come into play throughout. We need a system that is simultaneously robust and caring for the concerns of all involved. I do not believe that the debate so far has suggested that such consensus is there to be had.

Dominic Grieve: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Heath: I will, because I would except the hon. Gentleman from the terms that I have set out, on the basis of what he has said in previous debates on the matter.

Dominic Grieve: I am very grateful. Of course I agree that it is very desirable to achieve consensus, but sometimes it is not possible and there are legitimate differences of approach. He may agree, however, that we should be capable of having a rational debate and not one that is constantly undermined by a series of assertions that people are trying to derive some cheap political advantage.

David Heath: I agree, and I hope that we can now proceed on a basis that is a little more edifying.
	The timing of this debate is unfortunate, as we have not yet had responses to the Green Paper, which is a serious piece of work and deserves our proper attention, and because the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs, so ably chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), is even now taking an abundance of evidence and is yet to reach conclusions. His plea to both sides of the Chamber not to close down options until that process was complete was entirely appropriate. Sadly, it went unheard by those on both Front Benches.
	Let us set out some parameters for the debate. My colleagues and I stand foursquare behind the principle of the paramount interests of the child. We do not resile from it for one moment. Interestingly, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) made it clear that he shared our position, but that was not reflected in responses to interventions in the opening speech of his colleague, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, which is regrettable. Regardless of what we believe to be the best interests of the child, that should surely be our starting point, and the child should not be treated as just one of the goods and chattels up for disposal between the separating parties.
	It is reasonable and proper to say that in most cases the child's interests are best served by parenting involving both parents, if there are no other factors that create a barrier to that. In that, I have no difficulty in supporting the Conservatives' basic contention. It is also important to note that it is always better, if at all possible, to proceed by conciliation and mediation rather than a divisive and confrontational process. However, I note the words of Lord Justice Munby, whose views I have learned to respect on these matters, in his evidence to the Constitutional Affairs Committee:
	"In an ideal world one would hope that parents could reach an agreement on these matters without outside assistance. We do not live in an ideal world. If outside assistance is required, then mediation is infinitely preferable to the court process. There will be an irreducible number of cases which have to come to court."
	Most of us recognise the truth of that.

Hilton Dawson: In asserting the importance of children being able to have good-quality contact with both parents, does the hon. Gentleman also accept that we need to pay great attention to the risk of abuse? Does he agree that we are sometimes too glib in simply acknowledging the relevance of abuse without facing up to the fact that we are not good at recognising it and that sometimes courts order contact that results in children dying?

David Heath: I do accept that, and I shall have a little more to say about it later.
	I came to the debate predisposed to support the motion moved by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, but I have to say that on occasions she made it rather difficult for me to do so. I was concerned at her assertion that the vast majority of cases leave the father outwith a satisfactory conclusion. I do not believe that that is supported by the evidence. There are certainly many—too many—cases in which the fathers are very worried about the outcome and the arrangements for access, but I cannot accept that such cases are the vast majority. I hope that she may reconsider that.
	We had a debate about paramount interests as against priority. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield has satisfied me on that point in a way that the right hon. Lady did not. It was unworthy to say that the Government's position is that two parents are not in the best interests of the child. That is not their position. To characterise and caricature the position of either side in this debate is profoundly unhelpful. We need a sensible and mature debate.
	I have one quibble with the wording of the motion, and it is an important one, concerning the point made by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson). The motion refers to
	"a legal presumption of reasonable contact with their children, except where a child's safety would be at risk".
	The child's safety is an insurmountable problem when it comes to access, and we should recognise far more often the problems that sometimes arise in respect of child abuse. I would go further and say that it is a question not simply of the child's safety, but of risk of harm in the wider sense of the word.
	Let us consider a case involving prolonged domestic violence, occasioned by a father on a mother. There is no question about the loving relationship between the father and the child, but the father has behaved in an appalling and violent way towards his spouse. It is not hard to see that such behaviour could have an enormously detrimental and harmful effect on the child, so it would be entirely proper for the child to take the view that, although their safety was not in doubt, there was a risk of harm if the father had access to the family home and they had to re-live an earlier experience.

Hilton Dawson: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there is also a significant correlation between domestic violence and physical, sexual child abuse?

David Heath: Yes, I do, and as the hon. Gentleman knows, we debated that issue in the context of the recent domestic violence legislation. But that does not alter my view that one does not have to prove abuse of the child to believe that there is a risk of harm to the child, depending on the circumstances that may prevail. That is my significant issue with the Conservative motion, although I do not believe that they intend to discredit such situations. We are talking about the words used, rather than the intention behind the motion.

Vera Baird: Even if we do not embroil ourselves in the relationship between domestic violence visited on the parent and harm inflicted on the child, one can still make the valid criticism of the motion that I think the hon. Gentleman is making: that there will be a legal presumption of parenting unless there is a risk to safety. Let us consider a parent who has not bothered to get in touch with the child for 15 years, and who has not seen it since it was small. Throughout that time, the parent has carried with him, and will re-present, a presumption that he must be entitled to parenting. The sudden re-visiting of that parent upon the child is likely to be harmful to the child, even though it will not constitute a danger in safety terms. Is that not one of the major flaws with the motion, which, I am afraid, is simply cheap Jack?

David Heath: I understand the circumstances that the hon. and learned Lady describes, and that is why the courts have to assess the circumstances individually. However, it is not an entirely sound argument against the principle of a secondary presumption—rather than a paramount presumption—that contact with both parents will usually be beneficial to the child and in the interests of its welfare. Indeed, this is what somewhat alarmed me about the Minister's speech. She was so intent on rubbishing the Conservatives' motion that she did not countenance the perfectly respectable argument in favour of such a presumption. The Solicitors Family Law Association, which surely has a proper and legitimate interest as a practitioner in this field, made that argument cogently. In giving evidence to the Select Committee, it said:
	"The existing presumption that arrangements for post-separation parenting arrangements should be based on the interests of the child should remain in force. However SFLA believes that there should also be a statutory presumption that children should have contact with both parents post-separation, unless there are reasons that militate against this, such as safety concerns."
	The difference is that the SFLA uses safety as an example, rather than describing it as the sole factor.

Dominic Grieve: rose—

David Heath: That is my criticism of the Conservatives' motion, which the hon. Gentleman will hopefully now tell me is not supposed to be interpreted in that way.

Dominic Grieve: The hon. Gentleman has encapsulated very well what the issues should be, and in my view, the motion, as worded, does that. However, I am always prepared to acknowledge that words are capable of being changed, which is why I invited the Minister to look at the intention behind the motion and the debate. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in a sense, the Minister almost made the point herself? She acknowledged that in most cases, it is desirable that a child have contact with both parents. Surely that is the logical first step towards saying that there should be a presumption in favour of such contact—subject, of course, to the overarching presumption in favour of the child's welfare.

David Heath: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the only issue should be the hierarchy of presumptions. We must be absolutely clear that the child's welfare is paramount, and subject to that presumption, other factors come into play. I see no reason why we must choose between asserting that presumption to the exclusion of all else, or rejecting it. We need to be sensible about the arrangements emerging from this ongoing debate on the future of our family law system.

Peter Luff: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Heath: I have given way lots of times, so this had better be the last.

Peter Luff: Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern at the apparent implication of the intervention of the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird)? She seemed to suggest that a father who realises that he made a mistake in abandoning his child 15 years ago should be denied access to it. Surely the child would welcome the father's coming back and wanting to give it loving care and attention.

David Heath: The child might do, which is the key point. What the court then needs to determine is whether such access is in the child's interest, without assuming that it is or is not.

Peter Luff: Exactly.

David Heath: The hon. Gentleman and I are at one on this issue.
	I have one final criticism of the opening remarks of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead. She said that she was "unveiling" this policy, as if the need for such reform were a great revelation to the Conservative party alone. However, there is a developing consensus in this ongoing debate, and everything that the Conservatives proposed today has already been discussed. The right hon. Lady's speech was an unfortunate politicisation of what should be a non-political issue. All the parties should be seeking the right way forward through mediation and conciliation, rather than through confrontation.
	I want briefly to canter through the deficiencies in the current system as I see them. First, the delays associated with the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, despite its re-birth, are unacceptable. According to the SFLA, first appointments currently take between 10 and 12 weeks, whereas the president of the family division has suggested that they should take a maximum of four to six weeks. Such delays are simply unacceptable, given the grief that accompanies separations.
	The way in which such matters are assessed in court gives rise to some significant and central issues. I very much look forward to hearing the views of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, which I believe will illuminate the defects within the operation, rather than within the statute, that are at the core of many of the frustrations so often expressed today.
	It cannot be right for children to be drafted into what amounts to a conflict—all too often an extremely bitter conflict—between parents as if they were simple bit players or pieces of furniture to be squabbled over. We must develop arrangements that allow the child's voice to be heard clearly and separately from the parental squabble. A court must be able properly to determine what is in the best interest of the child from the testimony of children themselves. I believe that that is an important principle.
	We need an arrangement whereby both parents, if willing and able to do so, can through co-operation properly provide for the physical, emotional and financial support of the child. That is why the early intervention scheme, which we have debated, was so important. I am sorry, but I do not accept what the Minister for Children, Young People and Families says about this. She is trying to conflate two different schemes and claim that one is a very good development from experience overseas. It may well be, but it does not replace the early intervention scheme, which was developed in this country on the basis of consensus within the community of interests, particularly professional interests, involved in these matters. It needed statutory backing in order for it to work and it involved changes in court procedures, which the family intervention scheme does not. They are totally different things. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) said in an earlier sedentary intervention, it is all very well saying that a cow is an adapted sheep, but try getting wool from it. They are two different creatures.
	The Government would be well advised to look again at the real advantages of an early intervention scheme. The continuity of interests in respect of professionals, the capacity for court intervention and the capacity to identify differences and reconcile them before it becomes necessary for a court to make an order are all very much in the interests of the child and, indeed, of the contesting partners.
	My last point is about legal aid, which no one has mentioned. It is crucial. We already know the difficulty in many parts of the country of identifying family law solicitors who are available to work for people on these matters. There is a diminishing cohort of professionals, with solicitors often finding it unattractive for their practices to do publicly funded work. Yet in the context of the Green Paper and the development of law in this sphere, we should not be aiming to enhance only what is done in court, but what is done before the court stage, where legal aid can be crucial. We need an expansion, not a diminution, in the availability of legal aid.
	As I said, this evening's debate has not been of the highest quality. [Interruption.] That may well include myself—it is for others to judge—but it worries me when I hear something that smacks of opportunism and over-simplification on the one hand, and complacency and reaction on the other. I will advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the Conservative motion today, because there is more in it that we support than we reject, notwithstanding my trenchant criticisms of some aspects of it. I will reject the Government motion because it smacks of self-congratulation and I do not believe that they have got it right. Much more work needs to be done. It is sad to reduce matters to slogans, when the subject is so complicated and so important to so many people's lives. Frankly, we should do better.

Hilton Dawson: I will not support the Opposition motion this evening because I believe that it is dangerous. I debated the issues with the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) in the Committees that considered the Children Bill and the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill. The motion reflects the Opposition's policy of making far too glib a reference to child safety, based on the assumption that recognising and dealing with child protection issues is far easier than it really is.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) compounded the error through her determination to rid us of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, which comprises an extremely skilled body of people who play a vital family justice role not just in mediation but in the representation—sometimes tandem representation—of children in the private law system. If CAFCASS were not involved in working with children in court and the skills of experienced CAFCASS workers were not employed in family resolution projects and the various other initiatives that have been developed to try to resolve matters informally, it would do a great disservice to children.

Dominic Grieve: I appreciate that efforts are being made to put CAFCASS on a new footing, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree—because it is or was the Government's view—that CAFCASS was a failing organisation. One of the areas in which it was failing was the production of reports in relation to contact, which were mechanistic, long, laboured and inadequate. In those circumstances, I am a little surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman praise CAFCASS. While we may hope for change in the future, signs that those problems have been resolved have yet to appear.

Hilton Dawson: I can only refer the hon. Gentleman to the words of Lord Justice Wall when giving evidence to the Constitutional Affairs Committee. He said:
	"I regard CAFCASS as absolutely critical to the successful operation of the family justice system".
	He is far more eminent, skilled and experienced in the family courts than I am. The Committee was highly critical of CAFCASS, which led the Government to decide to sack the chairman and board and to replace the chief executive. CAFCASS has had a new chief executive for only a matter of weeks, but the evidence is that it is taking great steps to address some of the criticisms we made, such as its top-heavy management. More resources are being pushed to the front line. It is premature for the Opposition to start calling for the end of CAFCASS when such radical changes have been made to the organisation.
	All of us could avoid all criticism of political opportunism by starting not from where parents are—or at least, certain groups of parents—but from where children are. Children do not have any votes, so we could not be accused of doing anything inappropriate if we started from their position. That position is clear and it is set out in the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. Articles 9, 7 and 5 refer to the rights of the child to be cared for by parents, the parents' right to exert parental responsibility in allowing their child to develop and evolve their capacity, and the child's right to contact unless it is in their best interests not to have contact.
	I am dismayed that we seem to be moving away from treating the best interests of the child as paramount, as enshrined in the Children Act 1989. I have said several times that that is fine legislation that sets out fundamental principles for the care of children. A key concept in that Act is not parental rights but parental responsibility. The Government, to their great credit, have developed that concept so that all natural parents of children, whatever the status of their relationship, can take up that parental responsibility.
	We should assert the responsibility of the non-resident parent to support their child. Even in what are, goodness knows, appalling circumstances of disharmony, strife, hurt and emotional pain—everything that people go through when relationships break down—we should assert above all the responsibilities of people for their children. We should start from that point.
	The Government are addressing some of the crucial issues relating to parental contact and the difficulties of parental separation. Families are receiving much greater financial support, as well as advice and assistance. Through the development of Sure Start, family centres and extended schools, parents are being provided with much information about the needs and development of children and about their responsibilities to their children. There is much skilled help to support people in resolving matters informally at an early stage. Sometimes, we concentrate too much on the need to resolve things extremely quickly; people sometimes have to go through a process. In general, however, the more help we can offer people to take up their responsibilities at an early stage, the better.
	I am concerned that we are not really getting to grips with domestic violence and its links to child abuse, although the Government have at least started to address the issue—the Opposition ignore it. Child protection is absolutely necessary, and the Government have made great strides. From next month, domestic violence will be included in the criteria for significant harm. The president of the family division has developed guidelines on practice to ensure that courts pay much more attention to domestic violence cases. As we know, women are disempowered, but people in domestic violence situations are often doubly disempowered by the abuse that they have undergone. It is sometimes difficult for people to come forward at an early stage to explain the facts of their abuse to strangers, or in a courtroom setting.
	It is also difficult for children to have their voices heard. We do not have separate representation for children in private law, although we do not invariably need it. However, messages I have received from members of a range of professions associated with the family courts show that there are real concerns about the need for children's voices to be heard. I look forward to the implementation of section 122 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which is due to take place in September 2005 and will strengthen the legislation on separate representation for children in private law. I am pleased to see the development of CAFCASS, to which reference has already been made, and the strong commitment of members of the legal profession to a system of tandem representation by legal and social work professionals in private as well as in public law.
	Case law that establishes that contact is almost always in the interests of the child is a serious problem, as it leads judges to overlook the reality of domestic violence. One cannot escape the fact that in 2003 an estimated 16,000 cases involving domestic violence came before family courts, but only 601 contact orders were refused. The availability of supervised contact centres has improved, but the number of such facilities is inadequate. Children in Lancaster who have supervised contact with a parent must travel to Manchester, so I look forward to the day when a children's centre or an extended school can provide such facilities.
	In our consideration of the Domestic Violence, Crime and VictimsAct 2004 and the Children Act 1989 we discussed a provision that operates successfully in New Zealand, where there is a presumption in cases in which domestic violence is a factor that there will not be contact unless it can be made safe and the child wants to have it. We ignore the voices of children and non-resident parents at our peril. There is a glib assumption throughout society that it is mainly women who wilfully resist or refuse contact, sometimes to an inordinate extent by moving house, leaving the area and hiding away, thus risking imprisonment and the wrath of the courts. Some people refuse contact for no good reason whatsoever, thus denying the rights of their children to contact with a loving parent, but in many cases where contact is strongly refused there may well be an element of violence or abuse that has not come to light or been exposed. We leap into draconian solutions and adopt simplistic ideas to deal with those situations when we should listen carefully to what women, sometimes men and, above all, children are saying.
	There is a social work solution to most of these problems. We make great play of the number of lawyers that we need, but we often overlook the skills, experience and quality of the social work profession. The Select Committee has heard cogent evidence about the way in which courts and judges can work with members of CAFCASS to resolve allegedly intractable contact disputes. Professionals have been able to gain the confidence of people who have refused contact by working with warring parents and looking at the needs of the children among all the clamour and confusion. They have been able to challenge parents and, if necessary, return to the family court within 24 hours if contact has been a problem.
	We do not need bold, simplistic solutions to respond to the antics of a few idiots who parade themselves around and throw things at us from the Public Gallery. We need careful thought, good work and an appreciation of the difficulties and sensitivities inherent in an extremely complex subject. The evidence is that if we can ensure that courts at different levels work more cogently together, if we can get the legal profession and the social work profession to work together, and if we can base a system on the needs, voices and best interests of children, we have a chance. The Government are proceeding on the right lines. The subject is not one for party political debate, but it is an extremely important subject to which we should all give careful thought and consideration.

Peter Luff: I agree with the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) that the matter is not necessarily susceptible of bold solutions and that it is one of great sensitivity. The proposals in the Opposition motion so ably moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) are not bold and dramatic solutions, but sensible and pragmatic ones that address a real concern.
	I was disappointed to hear the old canard of opportunism being raised by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath). In his concluding remarks, the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre said that the subject was a matter of genuine concern. The House exists to debate matters of genuine concern and we fail in our duty if we do not. This is not opportunism. It is our solemn responsibility as Members of the House of Commons to debate matters of genuine concern, so I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead on proposing the motion.

David Heath: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Peter Luff: With pleasure, to an hon. Gentleman whom I generally respect.

David Heath: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Does he believe that the debate on such a matter of genuine concern would have benefited from the consideration of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, which is currently taking evidence?

Peter Luff: No, absolutely not. Today's debate does not preclude a further debate on the Select Committee's considerations. On a matter of such importance, the whole House of Commons has a right to express its view and I hope that that will inform both the Government's consideration of the responses to their Green Paper and the Select Committee's considerations. The debate is part of a process, not an endgame and I hope that all members of the Select Committee will listen to the debate and understand that the passions that have been aroused stem from the importance of the issue. It is part of a process that I welcome. It is timely and not inappropriate at all.
	I also disagree with the idea that, just because an issue is important, we should be able to reach a consensus on it. Consensus often proves most elusive on the most important questions, precisely because they are so important and people bring their own perspectives to them. It may be impossible to reach a consensus on the subject of our debate, but there is a consensus that the interests of the child lie at its centre. That is good, but our solutions that flow from that consensual idea could be radically different.
	I regret the tone of the Minister's speech in her response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead. There are differences between the parties and they need to be explored honestly, but I am afraid the Minister sought to fan the flames of party hatred, rather than engaging in serious debate. When she reads her remarks afterwards, she will realise what a regrettable speech she made this evening. I come to the Chamber in a spirit of consensus, seeking to explore an issue honestly, but I was inflamed by her partisan remarks. "Physician, heal thyself" is my response to her accusations that my right hon. Friend sought to score party points during her remarks.

Vera Baird: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Peter Luff: I give way to the hon. and learned Lady with pleasure.

Vera Baird: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Is it not clear that if one replaces the paramountcy of the welfare of the child with mere priority, and elevates the parents' rights to contact, one is realigning the balance of importance in these decisions against the interests of the child? That is unwise, is it not?

Peter Luff: I disagree profoundly with the hon. and learned Lady, for reasons that I will come to later. That is one of the key points that I wish to make. I think that she is wrong, because the paramountcy of the child's interests obviously depends on having proper parenting behind that child. The access to parents lies at the heart of the paramountcy. Those are not contradictory but supplementary notions. I cannot understand the point that she is trying to make.
	I wanted to speak in the debate for two reasons. First, I wanted to make a point that needs to be made and to which I attach great importance for reasons that I will explain: families and children genuinely need fathers. I regret the gender-specific nature of that observation, but it needs to be said. My motive for speaking in the debate, as the House will see, is that I believe that families need fathers.
	My second reason for speaking is that I want strongly to support the policy change that lies at the heart of the official Opposition's motion
	"that separated parents should each have a legal presumption of reasonable contact with their children, except where a child's safety would be at risk".
	I take the point made by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome which I took to mean "or harmed". I think that that is a semantic, not a substantial point. The hon. Gentleman makes a fair and reasonable point that I hope that my Front-Bench colleagues would accept in a manuscript amendment, if they could. Certainly my support for the motion incorporates the view that he expressed. It is a useful but small point.
	I enter the debate with some reluctance because the issue is a minefield. I am not a lawyer, and unlike the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, I am not a former social worker. My experience comes not from any professional expertise, but simply as a member of the human race.
	I regret the polarisation in this important debate. There are some, as we have heard from some remarks from the Government Benches this evening, who give primacy to the perfectly understandable and reasonable concern about the brutality that men too often show to women and children. That is an important feature of the debate. There are others, such as Fathers 4 Justice, the selfishness of whose very exploits speaks volumes about the character of the men themselves and leads one to doubt some of their claims. There are two extremes that often polarise debate and prevent the search not for a consensus but for an honest debate about the issues raised.

Vera Baird: Will the hon. Gentleman please give way again?

Peter Luff: I will not give way again, not because I do not want to but because we have only about another half an hour for the debate and I strongly suspect that the hon. and learned Lady will have a chance to speak later and rebut my points if she so wishes.
	I speak for a variety of reasons. The first is a strictly personal motive. I was brought up in a single-parent, single-child family. My father died when I was eight and I make no secret of the fact that I missed him very badly. My childhood would have been richer and more fulfilled had I had a father to share it with me. My mother was a wonderful and very loving woman who gave me every opportunity that she could within her abilities, but I know that my life would have been better had I had a father to see me through to my adult years.
	I speak also because of my painful constituency experiences. Children without fathers have a diminished opportunity in respect of role models because of the regrettable scarcity of men in the teaching profession in first and primary schools. That is a real issue. I should love to see more men teaching in such schools.
	I have given up asking children the standard question that I used to ask about where they live because, too often, the answer is that they live with their mother on certain days and their father on other days. It is a painful answer to get from a child of seven or eight.
	Anger is an occupational hazard for politicians. One needs to feel anger to correct the injustices that one sees all the time. In my constituency surgery, there are two sorts of casework that really anger me. First, there are the occasions where I see mothers who have been wronged by fathers who have just walked out on a relationship, on their children and on all financial and emotional responsibility. It is a scandal and I am ashamed of my fellow men every time I come across such cases. But I also see the scandal, alluded to by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, of fathers denied access to their children by their ex-wives and partners using every manoeuvre imaginable to deny them access and that is equally painful and objectionable.Recently in my constituency surgery, I have had cases of abuse of children by the non-resident father, so I know that that also is a real issue and that makes me extremely angry too. I have seen fathers' lives ruined by the actions of mothers who have deliberately connived to deny fathers access to their children. I am thinking of one couple in particular. The father chose not to use the courts to make an issue out of his ex-wife's monstrous behaviour out of love for his children. I respect and admire him, but his continuing pain is clear.

Hilton Dawson: Will the hon. Gentleman accept my point that a great deal of undetected domestic violence and child abuse underlies some of the allegations made by people who unreasonably refuse contact?

Peter Luff: I will not speculate on that point, because I know of cases in which mothers have invented such allegations to enhance their cases for trials or even to make their children afraid of their father. Anecdotes and speculation will do us no good at all. We must stick to the facts, which are often elusive in such cases. That argument can be had both ways.
	We are discussing the failure of relationships. The increasing number of relationships that break down makes the matter more important with each year that passes. Between 150,000 and 200,000 parental couples separate each year. It is estimated that 28 per cent. of children—more than one quarter and almost one third—are personally affected by divorce by the age of 16. Those of us who were brought up in the '50s and '60s regard that as an extraordinary statistic. In our years at school, hardly any of our friends had parents who were separated or divorced, but I know from my children's experience that it is commonplace for children in their class to have separated parents. That is a real problem, and this House should assert that marriage is the best way to bring up children—I am sure that the Minister agrees with that—and that couples should make greater efforts to stay married. There is social pressure to regard marriage as another disposable commodity, which it is not. If we could restore the primacy of marriage and keep more relationships together, today's debate would be much less important, because many fewer children would be affected.
	I freely acknowledge that good outcomes are still possible for children after the divorce and separation of their parents. A good outcome was not possible for me because my father died, but in cases involving separation and divorce, which we are discussing today, the father or mother is still there to provide love and care for the child in a co-parenting relationship, if a framework exists to make that possible.
	When parental separation is badly handled, conflict is often played out around or through children. I can think of current high-profile cases in which that may be true. Where children lack a safe and secure environment, the impact on them is immensely damaging. Mothers and fathers must be careful about their true motives when fighting custody and contact battles through their children. Children who have been fortunate enough to enjoy effective parenting in which their fathers have been actively involved in their lives experience better educational outcomes, better relationships with the police, law and order and crime and better protection from mental health problems.
	Time presses on, so I shall concentrate on the views of the Solicitors Family Law Association, which fears that the heightened language in the current debate, some of which we have regrettably heard this evening, has made it much more difficult for people to find a way forward to resolve difficult cases. It is possible to return the debate to the middle ground in the interests of the children of families who separate, but that requires more action from the Government than they are currently prepared to concede.
	As far as I am aware, the SFLA is not an organ, tool or mouthpiece of the Conservative party. It has been committed to minimising conflict between separating parents for more than two decades and I have huge respect for what it has to tell us about its experiences. It played a leading role in developing mediation services to settle family disputes and, through its code of practice, it promotes a constructive approach that encourages parents to resolve their differences outside the court system, wherever possible. In my constituency, I have always been deeply impressed by SFLA members' views.
	Thankfully, as we have heard today, most parents who make arrangements involving their children do not involve the courts, but a growing number do. The SFLA rightly believes that those applications to court could be avoided and its useful report, "Practical Steps to Co-Parenting", makes several useful recommendations that it and I believe would help to improve the legal framework for parental disputes. It says:
	"There is no magic solution to some of the difficulties experienced by families caught up in legal disputes over children—the challenge of solving many of the toughest problems often falls outside the scope of the courts and relates more to ongoing bitterness between couples following relationship breakdown rather than to issues capable of judicial resolution."
	In other words, this lies largely outside the political arena and inside the intensely personal one. There is a limit to what we can achieve, but I believe that we could do more to create the framework that is necessary to achieve the outcome that the SFLA recommends.
	The SFLA says that it is talking only about the extreme cases, but I believe that those are representative of a much deeper pool of unhappiness, perhaps involving many disputes that, as it acknowledges, do not come before solicitors but lie untested by the courts. As I hinted earlier, I know from my own personal experience that such cases exist.
	The SFLA recommends nine action points, the first of which, intriguingly, is that
	"There should be a statutory presumption that children should have an on-going relationship with both their parents unless there is a clear reason why this would not be in their interests."
	That is a different form of words from "safety nor harm", but the same basic principle applies. It continues:
	"This addition, together with a change to the legal language of 'contact and residence', would help make it clear to parents what is expected of them."
	I point out to the Minister that the SFLA seems to support the principles that lie behind the Opposition motion. She should reflect earnestly on the important fact that the core of our motion equates to the first recommendation of the SFLA's report.
	The report says: "Co-parenting,"—not the 50:50 arrangement of the Minister's imagination—
	"where both parents offer physical, emotional and financial support to their children, must be in the best interests of the children, other things being equal."
	It says—this is a nice phrase—that the child
	"should not be seen as a 'timeshare'",
	and discusses forms of co-parenting that are not crude 50:50 relationships, but structures in which co-parenting can work effectively and properly. It talks, as did the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, about the need to listen clearly to children and ensure that they are not dragged into disputes in the courts or required to attend court. It has a host of practical suggestions that require legislative change to create a more desirable outcome. I find the Government's complacency disappointing.
	The president of the family division, the right hon. Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, rejected the arguments for an outright presumption. Giving evidence to the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs, she said:
	"we can only have one presumption that the welfare of the child is paramount. If you have two presumptions, which takes precedence? . . . the word 'presumption' is different in the law than perhaps it is for the public. If you have a legal presumption, you have to apply it, except in exceptional circumstances. The legal presumption is the welfare of the child."
	But she continued:
	"I can see a case for something slightly less, such as that the court should have regard to the importance of a relationship between the children and a non-residential parent."
	Even Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, who seems to reject the idea that the SFLA and I believe to be right, acknowledges that something needs to change.
	The Minister had her rant attacking us for partisan reasons, but there is a strong consensus out there that something must be done to change the situation to make a better framework for children. I know that she shares a passion for children, but I hope that that is not too coloured by a passion for her political party.

Vera Baird: The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) would not let me intervene on him. I was very concerned to hear him suggest that we have to mediate between two extremes: Fathers4Justice—or whatever they call themselves—who throw things at people and do demonstrations, and victims of domestic violence. It therefore does not surprise me one bit that he finds it impossible to understand why I object very powerfully to the motion. The motion is ludicrous. It would damage the interests of children and it damns the Tories who foolishly added their names to it as incompetent even at jumping on a bandwagon. First, it removes any reference to the welfare of the child. It refers to the "interests" of the child—I guess that that is a narrower concept but I do not understand why the Tories believe that they need to demote it. The motion states that
	"it is in the best interests of all children for both parents to be fully involved in their upbringing and hence"
	that there should be "a legal presumption" that applies to both parents.
	It is not possible, by writing a motion, to change facts. It is not in a child's best interests in every case in which parents have separated for them both to be "fully involved". It is not possible for that to be so. Let us take the most benign example that I can offer to try to make the point that is being missed or deliberately ignored. What about circumstances in which one parent is very sick? It is in neither the parent's nor the child's best interests for that person to be fully involved in the child's upbringing. It is better for the parent to have, if possible, long-term treatment, to recover and, in due course, to return and reintroduce themselves. [Hon. Members: "Pathetic."] Opposition Members say that that is pathetic but it is the most benign example that I can devise to try to help the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), who opened the debate, to appreciate that there are circumstances that are not even malign in which it is ludicrous to suggest that it is in children's best interests for both parents to be
	"fully involved in their upbringing".
	Let us take the slightly less benign example of a parent who is an habitual drunkard. The person's actions may not at all endanger the safety of the child but it is not in the interests of the child for that parent to be "fully involved" in its upbringing. It would not be in the interests of a child for a parent—female or male—who suffers from the effects of drug addiction to be "fully involved" in its upbringing. In every case, the court must make a decision about the amount and quality of involvement. That is as applicable to the husband as to the wife.
	The principle that guides that decision making is the paramountcy of the welfare of the child—the very principle that the motion would undermine in its clumsy way.

Dominic Grieve: Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

Vera Baird: No, I have tried hard to convince Opposition Members. They will simply have to hear me out.
	One cannot simply write a formula that states that it is always in the interests of children for both parents to be "fully involved" and ignore the commonplaces of daily life with which we are all familiar. It is a stupid formula.
	The motion replaces the principle of the paramountcy of the child's welfare by saying that it should have "priority". Priority is a weaker, more conditional word, which has no legal meaning and no significance. In common usage, it means that the interests of the child should be given some advantage over something else. That is all. Compare and contrast that with our amendment, which states that the interest of the child must be "paramount". That unmistakably makes the child No. 1. The motion places the child behind the Tories' "legal presumption of . . . contact", vested in every parent, irrespective of what a parent has done or may do, of what a parent is like and of the quality of the contact that a parent can give.
	The "legal presumption" would be there always, except when
	"a child's safety would be at risk".
	In contrast with the somewhat meaningless term of giving "priority" to interests, a "legal presumption" has a meaning in law. It means that what is presumed must be ordered, unless—and only unless—the presumption is rebutted by some other party calling evidence, which would have to be substantial and very strong. That would be against the odds, because the presumption in law would be that the presumption was there, so it would be necessary to try to dislodge something that the law said was the ordinary thing. In this case, that would be the presumption that all parents carried with them by right, from the fact of their parenthood, a presumption of reasonable contact, except when the child's safety would be at risk.
	That legal presumption, which would be hugely difficult to undermine, would come first. Demoting "paramountcy" to "priority" is clearly part and parcel of demoting the welfare of the child. So, unless there were a threat to the child's safety, not even the fact that the child's welfare might be undermined by contact with either a woman or a man would alter the fact that that parent would have a legally presumed right to reasonable contact, which the Tory courts would enforce against the interests of the child. That is what this proposal boils down to: a legal presumption that would be hugely difficult to move. According to the motion, it would be moveable only in the event of a threat to the safety of a child. Consequently, any undermining of the child's welfare or well-being would simply not be taken into account.
	The motion makes it clear that the legal presumption could be knocked over only if there were a threat to the child's safety. I have to ask myself just what is going on in the minds of the Conservatives. An utterly drunk person, male or female, would carry with them as they bedded down for the night in the street a presumption enforceable in law that they could have contact with their children. Of course, letting a drunken parent have contact with a child would pose no risk to the child's safety so long as there was someone else there to safeguard their physical welfare. So, however bad this proposal might be for the welfare of the child, the presumption would be that that parent should have contact. That would be the case even if the teachers, the courts, the children and everyone else in the world said that it would be wrong to have such contact. There would be no provision to stop it, unless it damaged the child's safety.
	In short, the motion gives priority to the interests of the parents, over the interests of the children. A parent, male or female, who had not seen their child for 10 years would carry a legal presumption of reasonable contact, and could suddenly appear on the scene, carrying their rights with them. So long as the child's safety were not undermined, they could insist not only on a presumption of contact but on a presumption of co-parenting. They could then withdraw for a few weeks from contact with the child whom they had not seen for a decade, and then come back and try to re-enter his life, relying once again on the legal presumption of co-parenting that could not be overturned unless the child's safety were at stake. The child's interests would be given priority only, and most assuredly not equality with the specially entrenched legal presumption available all the time to every parent unless there were a risk to the child's safety.
	The hon. Member for Maidenhead mentioned reasonable contact time and again. There is a presumption of contact, and I shall turn in a moment to what the law says about that. She talked about reasonable contact, however, and the right that she would give to parents involves reasonable contact. But what is that, if the presumption involves the rights of the parents and not those of the child? Let us be clear. The motion would not give a child the right of access to both their parents; it would give the parents the right of access to their children. Since the presumption relates to the right of the parents, I assume that the determination of what is reasonable is there for the parents' benefit, too, although one would give the children's interests some little bit of priority. Neither I nor anyone else who has thought about this matter properly would support the demotion of a child's interests to a mere priority and let the determining factor in contact be the legal presumption of a right for every parent.
	The motion is worse than that, because it represents not just a presumption of contact; it is a legal presumption of co-parenting. So, try keeping the drunk who is not a threat to the safety of the child out of his right to say which school the child should go to. Try keeping the mother or father who is very engaged with drugs out of deciding where the child will go for his holiday. Try preventing the parent who has not been near the child since that child was little from having his right to co-parent.
	It is absurd—dear me, so crazy—to try to jump on a bandwagon of a cause that even at its worst does not for one minute try to go as far as this motion tries to go. The welfare of the children must be paramount. There is no other way of doing this. There can be no legal presumptions that trump that principle. The parents must come second.
	It is clear that the principles and measures in the Green Paper, in particular the Government's commitment to ensuring that children can have a meaningful relationship with both their parents following parental separation, are admirable, appropriate and right, so long as it is safe. In most cases of parental separation, it is very important for children to maintain contact with the absent parent and to know that they are still loved by him.
	We support entirely the following statement by the president of the family division, which sums up the state of the law:
	"The courts naturally start with the view that in most cases contact between the child and the non-resident parent is desirable both for the child and for the parent."
	All children have a right to enjoy regular contact with both parents after separation, provided it is safe for all those involved, adequate measures for protection are in place and it is of sufficient quality to meet the parenting needs of the child.
	Enforcing a right to co-parenting has nothing to do with evaluating in the child's best interest the quality of what can be given by one parent.

Dominic Grieve: Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

Vera Baird: I know that one of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues wants to speak as well, so I shall not give way.
	Equal responsibility for the nurturing and parenting of children by fathers is critical, not only to meet the best interests of children, but, quite frankly, to promote the interests of women's equality in all aspects of life. We want fathers to be good parents if we are mothers because we want there to be equal responsibility. We want to be free to go our own way and to let men also go their own way. Women want men to be good parents, but I share the Government's view that a presumption of 50:50 parenting is absolutely not in the best interests of children.
	I have heard the protests from the Conservative Front Benchers, but it is clear that if they are going to talk about equal parenting, which they both have done, they should realise that the common usage of "equal parenting" means 50:50 parenting. They will either have to understand the terminology properly— [Interruption.] They will have to start to learn what the terminology means. There is no point coming here, using a term of art and then saying, "We did not really mean that." I am afraid that this tends to show that they do not know much about what they are talking about.

Dominic Grieve: Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

Vera Baird: No.
	What is important is that minimising conflict and reducing the use of court procedures wherever possible should be a priority, but in cases where the safety of children or domestic violence are an issue, court proceedings will usually be necessary to protect vulnerable children and adults from risk. As the Green Paper says, in 35 per cent. of cases, there are concerns about domestic violence. Such cases do not want enforced early mediation; they need court intervention with strong measures for legal protection.
	It is important to remember that in domestic violence cases the power balance between the parents is not equal, because one lives in fear of the other. In this situation, the family justice system would collude in putting children in danger if it sought to promote mediation, as was suggested, at an early stage or to promote contact and early resolution of disputes without assessing the risks and ensuring safety.
	Risk assessment did not cross the lips of the hon. Member for Maidenhead in her opening speech, which is a big disclosure of how little she understands the problems of domestic violence in contact. It is essential to ensure that contact is safe before it is enforced. From that point of view, I query whether the Green Paper is strong.
	I want to refer to a paper produced today, "Twenty-nine Child Homicides", which tells a significant story. It examines 29 children in 13 families who were killed as a result of contact or residence arrangements in England and Wales in the past 10 years. What is perhaps the most significant single fact to make clear, echoing the need for the practices of the family courts to be examined, but emphasising the way in which they need to be examined, is that in five of the 13 families in which there were deaths, contact had been ordered by the court. That is perfectly clear from a letter from the relevant Minister.
	The brief facts of one of those events are that the father was on bail awaiting trial for injuring the mother during a violent incident. Family court welfare officers recommended that contact arrangements for the two children should not include overnight stays. Despite that, the mother's solicitor encouraged her to make a compromise, and the judge made the decision on contact contrary to the recommendation in the welfare report. The children were killed by their father during an overnight stay.
	We cannot mess with the paramountcy of the welfare of the children. We cannot reduce paramountcy to giving some sort of priority, and elevate to predominance a right to co-parenting. Do the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and the hon. Member for Maidenhead really mean what they have said tonight, or are they just shamefully jumping on the bandwagon, on the backs of people who for the time being might have caught the public imagination, but who do not have a great deal of strength of fortitude in the case that they put forward? My view is that neither the hon. Lady nor the hon. Gentleman mean the ludicrous and unfair consequences that would follow from what they have said. I conclude that it is a disgraceful attempt to bandwagon.

Gerald Howarth: I think that the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) will, on reflection, regret having made what was a largely intemperate and, if I may say so, grotesquely arrogant speech from a lawyer who seeks to parade her superior knowledge of the law over the rest of us. This is not a court of law; it is the House of Commons. I am sorry, because she made some interesting points and raised some genuine concerns, but I fear that she spoilt that when she dismissed the case made by my right hon. Friend—the fact that she is a right hon. Member appears to have escaped the hon. and learned Lady— the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), whom I congratulate on moving the motion extremely well.
	In fairness, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead only picked up on the consultation document produced by the Minister for Children, Young People and Families. It is an interesting document, which exemplifies some concerns about an issue which we all regard as extremely sensitive and difficult. About 15 key concerns are set out at paragraph 18 of the document. Interestingly, the first is:
	"Some claim that the current law, or its interpretation in practice, does not give non-resident parents, usually fathers, the relationship with their child that they should have."
	That illustrates precisely the concerns that my right hon. Friend has been representing, and I am sure that those concerns are felt equally by the Minister.
	A further concern expressed in the document is that court-ordered contact is poorly enforced. As Members of Parliament, we are all familiar with such cases. The failure of court-enforced orders is a particular grievance of fathers, as my right hon. Friend pointed out. Interestingly, at the end of their document the Government propose to legislate at the earliest possible opportunity to provide additional enforcement powers. I do not think there is as much disagreement between the two sides as has been suggested by the attitude of some speakers.
	I am sorry that the Minister did not feel able to say "Although we do not agree with every word of the motion, we agree with it substantially, and certainly do not disagree with it enough to vote against it". That would have been a better approach. The Minister did say something with which I agree: that family break-up was a serious problem. I believe that the implosion of the nuclear family is the most serious issue in Britain. We all see in our constituency lives—in our surgeries, and in our correspondence—a trail of human misery, which is getting worse and which we ought to be addressing.
	I think the Minister said that nearly one in five babies was born in a home with no father. If she did not say exactly that, she gave a similar statistic about another aspect of family breakdown. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) was right when he said that families need fathers. He told us that he had had no father. That does not mean that every family without a father will produce a dysfunctional child. My hon. Friend is manifestly not dysfunctional, and my own father lost his father when he was seven and was brought up by his mother. It is not the case that every single-parent household is incapable of bringing up children, but we know that the dysfunctional family is a serious problem because we see it in our constituencies.
	My hon. Friend also spoke of the importance of marriage. It is a great shame that we are not doing more to promote the cause of marriage and to keep marriages together. We have talked about mediation and co-parenting, issues that apply very much to marriage. In 1998, the Government produced a document called "Supporting Families", in which they rightly proclaimed that marriage was
	"the surest foundation for raising children".
	Although the Home Office was then under the stewardship of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), whom the current Home Secretary has denounced for having left it in a "giant mess", that was a bold and correct assertion. It is a pity that more has not been done to promote the cause of marriage, to underpin it with fiscal benefits and to proclaim it as the best relationship in which to bring up children. The evidence for that is overwhelming.
	Sadly, I have not time to go through all the points that have been made, but I should like the Minister, if she has not already done so, to read the Hansard report of last Tuesday's Westminster Hall debate on this very issue. Members on both sides of the House took part in the debate, and there was much common ground. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) made a particularly telling point. The only point I shall make now, however, concerns evidence from the Office for National Statistics—again, not an organ of the Conservative party.
	About four years ago, the ONS produced a report on the prevalence of mental disorders in young people. It found that the prevalence of conduct disorders in boys aged 11 to 15 was three times higher in single-parent households than in married households. An even more stunning finding was that the statistic for cohabiting households was almost the same as that for single-parent households. That does not mean that every cohabiting couple or every single parent is in that category, but it does point to incontrovertible evidence that marriage is the best arrangement for raising children, as the Government themselves have stated.
	What have the Government done about it? They have done precious little, which is very disappointing. They are prescriptive about what we should eat and do for our health—do not smoke, do more dieting, do more exercise, do this, do that. Of course, it is perfectly right to criminalise those who are engaged in the traditional and ancient pursuit of hunting but, when the evidence shows that marriage is overwhelmingly the best form of raising children, they decide not to press that because they do not want to upset people who are in other relationships.
	I know that what I am about to say is controversial, but given that the official policy proclaimed by the Home Office is resolutely in favour of marriage and that the Home Secretary is responsible for the implementation of that policy, I cannot see how the present Home Secretary can maintain his position, which I personally regard as untenable. I think that he has deliberately and publicly tried to undermine another man's marriage. What message does that send to the rest of society? What message does it send to people who are trying to bring up their children—"If the Home Secretary can engage in this, why shouldn't I as well?"
	I am sorry to say that, but this is an important matter because public policy issues are at stake. We all understand the Home Secretary's personal anguish but, unless we become a completely amoral and secular society in which anything goes, we must accept some moral code and send a signal to those parents whom my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire talked about earlier.
	This debate is coming to a conclusion. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead is absolutely right in bringing the motion to the House tonight. There should be a presumption that both parents should have access to their children. Although the hon. and learned Member for Redcar was right, she spoilt her case by choosing extreme examples. Clearly, a man who is a complete drunk is not a suitable person to have the kind of access that we are discussing. The Government agree that that is the case, but there should be a presumption that both parents should have responsibility for bringing up their children. We must find ways to involve both parents. We should consider more often early intervention and mediation before separation, rather than afterwards. I see the Minister agreeing with me. On that note of agreement, I shall resume my seat and support my right hon. Friend in the Lobby.

Dominic Grieve: It has not been easy to conduct this debate in a rational framework. I regret that because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) highlighted, the starting point was not some Conservative party view but the view of the Solicitors Family Law Association that the substantive law relating to contact between children and their parents after divorce needed to be changed in order to achieve what I think is the commonly held intention of ourselves and the Government. Contact should be facilitated to ensure that both parents, if they are willing and capable after divorce, continue to provide a substantial input into their children's lives, which is thought to be desirable.
	The Government have got themselves into the most enormous tangle on the issue of presumption. Indeed, the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) added to the general hysteria when we were confronted with statements that any tinkering with the existing law would bring down the entire edifice of child protection.
	Let me deal with the Children Act 1989. It starts with a statement about the welfare of the child and says that the child's welfare shall be the court's paramount consideration. Yet sections 2 and 3 have no difficulty in providing and defining that parents in marriage have responsibility for their children, and there seems to be no incompatibility between that and the paramountcy of the child's welfare. If the logic of both the Minister and the hon. and learned Lady is taken to its conclusion, those sections should not appear, because it would be for the state to determine, at the outset of a child's life, whether parents could have that responsibility. Let me say to the hon. and learned Lady that nothing in those sections says what makes a good parent. She can look elsewhere in the legislation and find the circumstances in which the state may choose to intervene, but sections 2 and 3 make no such reference.

Vera Baird: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Dominic Grieve: No, I am afraid that I cannot. The hon. and learned Lady did not do me the courtesy of giving way at any stage in her speech, whereas I would normally do so willingly.
	Why is it that, although sections 2 and 3 operate to provide for parental responsibility before divorce, after divorce it suddenly becomes impossible to introduce any further definition of what constitutes the child's best welfare interests and their paramountcy in section 1? That is the issue that divides the Minister and me. It is extraordinary that we cannot have a sensible debate on the subject. We are suggesting that it would greatly help parents to understand their responsibilities after divorce if, in addition to the paramountcy of the child's welfare, it were also provided in law and in statute that every facility should be made available for co-parenting when that is possible. I simply do not understand why the Minister cannot engage in a rational debate on that subject.

Hilton Dawson: Where, in what the Opposition have suggested tonight or in any other policy that they have espoused, is there anything to address the issue of children being murdered on court-ordered contact?

Dominic Grieve: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point. We had the opportunity on the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill to debate these difficult topics, but—

Hilton Dawson: Oh, come on.

Dominic Grieve: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will bear with me for one moment. It is possible for a child to be killed by its parents when they are both married and living together—in fact, it happens horribly frequently. We have to consider such matters in the House, but it does not make the smallest difference to the issue that we are trying to raise about the desirability of contact with responsible parents after separation or divorce.

Hilton Dawson: rose—

Dominic Grieve: No, I cannot give way a second time, as time is rather short.

Peter Bottomley: Would it not have helped the debate a great deal if the Minister and those who have been giving her valiant and needed support had understood that article 8.2 of the European convention on human rights makes it plain that, where there is a conflict of interest between the parent and the child, the child's interests come first? Why cannot they open their minds to what my hon. Friend is saying?

Dominic Grieve: I could not agree more. It troubles me greatly that we have been unable at any stage to have a proper debate, even outside the framework of the House. When I went to a conference in Manchester that was addressed by the Minister, she spoke first, and even before hearing a word that I had to say—indeed, I did not have the opportunity of saying it, because the meeting was disrupted—she trotted out the same condemnations about our somehow interfering with the tablets of stone on this issue. I disagree with her entirely.

Annette Brooke: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm, fairly and squarely, that the principle of co-parenting is clearly subordinate to the welfare interests of the child, and their paramountcy, as set out in the motion? If we could have that clearly on the record, we would be very happy.

Dominic Grieve: I have been saying that until I am blue in the face. I said it when we debated my amendment to the Children Bill, I said it repeatedly to the Minister and I say it again tonight. It is disgraceful that she should yet again seek to suggest that that is not our position. That characterises the Government's approach to this issue from start to finish.
	There are other matters of which we are critical. We made it clear that in our view, in addition to a necessary change in the law, the early interventions project would be an extremely useful tool for facilitating a process through which the adversarial might be removed from disputed contact matters, allowing for resolution through mediation. That would require making mediation compulsory, and it appeared that the Government were willing to go along with that. However, they pulled back at the last minute, and as several Members have rightly pointed out, they then deceived the public about what they had actually done. When the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) winds up the debate, I hope that he will take the opportunity to address that issue, because I remain completely mystified as to why the Government have changed their stance. That said, in a moment I shall speculate about one reason why that might have happened.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) was right to say that having two parents should be treasured, welcomed and valued. That really ought to be our starting point, rather than that of the hon. and learned Member for Redcar. As I listened to her comments, I began to conclude that she does not believe in the value of two parents. The only way of interpreting her rabid attack—[Interruption.] It was a rabid attack, and the only interpretation of it can be that she does not believe whatsoever in the value of two parents.

Vera Baird: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Dominic Grieve: I am sorry, but I cannot give way to the hon. and learned Lady. She never did me the courtesy of doing so, so she can sit down.
	I very much hope that the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service recovers from what has been a disastrous start, but frankly, the Minister cannot escape the fact that it is perfectly legitimate to raise the question of whether alternatives are available. CAFCASS might have a public law role in future—indeed, although there have been failings, that is the one area in which it has demonstrably produced benefits—but I am at a loss to understand the Government's desire to maintain its role in private law cases, given that those employed to do the work are clearly ill suited to it. That is a legitimate subject for debate, and it is quite wrong for the Minister to attack us on that issue.
	I want to give the hon. Member for Shipley time to wind up, so I shall finish with this thought. The Government repeatedly refuse to consider any alteration to primary legislation. I do not understand why, except for the worrying conclusion that I have come to, which is that the Government's adherence to the belief that the state always knows best means that they are very reluctant to concede any more responsibility to parents when marriages come to an end, and that they probably regret the existence of parental responsibility clauses in the original Children Act 1989. That is a major philosophical difference between us, and we intend to debate it repeatedly with the Government, because it is essential that the public realise the direction that they are coming from and, much more worryingly, in which they are going.

Christopher Leslie: I regret the tone adopted by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) in summing up this Opposition day debate—in fact, only Conservative Front Benchers seemed to participate in it—because traditionally all parties have broadly agreed on such issues.
	I think that it is important to review the fact that, historically, we have had bipartisanship in this arena—for example, in respect of the welfare of the child being paramount, which is a principle enshrined in the Children Act 1989. As we have heard, that Act was introduced by the previous Administration with all-party support. We should reflect on other countries that have emulated that example, with Australia and Italy looking to learn from it, viewing the Act almost as a model that has stood the test of time—and we would want to defend that view.
	Secondly, there has traditionally been all-party agreement that children benefit from a meaningful relationship with both parents, as long as it is safe for the child. No one disputes the value to a child of having an input from two loving parents, if possible. If there was a good relationship between the parents before separation, it should continue and be supported.
	Thirdly, there has historically been agreement that mothers and fathers should have equal standing before the courts. Contact issues, all other things being equal, should be gender neutral. Residence and contact considerations should be driven by the child's needs and best interests—for example, in respect of access to friends, family, learning activities and so forth.
	Fourthly, there has hitherto been agreement between the parties that nothing should jeopardise child safety. Tragically, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) pointed out, there are still too many cases where relationships break down because of domestic violence or, even worse, because of fears for the safety of the children. Today's The Sun campaign to stop child abuse highlights why we should never hesitate to investigate allegations of violent behaviour, to bring issues to the forefront in any case involving the Children Act and implement the section of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 that closes the loophole whereby perpetrators jointly accused of murder have hidden behind silence.
	I am sorry to say that there are some issues on which the Government disagree with the Opposition tonight, principally their proposal for a statute law rewrite to place greater emphasis on the rights of parents. I am not quite sure about the extent to which that is a serious proposal. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) spoke of a drastic and fundamental rewrite—a wholesale reversal of policy—whereas the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) called it a modest, pragmatic change.
	We need to view the matter from the right perspective. Nine out of 10 couples sorted out contact arrangements with no court involvement. When the one in 10 cases goes to court, contact is overwhelmingly granted. Only in 1 per cent. of contact applications is contact refused. Our worry is that if courts are made to give higher priority to parents' rights, it can only erode the current process, which focuses above all on the child's rights. Difficult though it may be, it is right that a child's considerations should come before those of the parents. That point was most eloquently made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), who highlighted the difference between priority and the concept of paramountcy.

Theresa May: The Minister referred to the number of cases where contact is granted by the court. Yes, it is granted in those significant number of cases, but the issue is about the degree of contact granted and about the way in which, notwithstanding the granting of contact orders, the parent with residence is all too often able to use the system to prevent the other parent from having access and contact. We believe that it is right for both parents to have a full and proper relationship with their children.

Christopher Leslie: Surely the right hon. Lady would not want to dictate the nature of the contact in all cases. It is different in some cases than in others. Surely we should allow the courts to look into the circumstances on a case-by-case basis and allow them to make a judgment about the contact that is appropriate in the light, first and foremost, of the child's best interests.

Dominic Grieve: rose—

Christopher Leslie: I will not give way.
	It is right that we have debated the issues of equal parenting, co-parenting and the circumstances in which they arise. Labour Members worry about the concept because we do not feel that it is possible somehow to dictate that there should be equal apportionment of time between one parent and another. We need to be much more sophisticated in the way the law is applied. Of course, a child's interests are usually best served by a continued relationship with both parents, but the children must come first, not the parents' needs.

Dominic Grieve: Will the Minister give way?

Christopher Leslie: No, I do not have time to give way. Children are not possessions to be divided for the satisfaction of the parents. The child's life matters most, and that includes access to school, friends, family and so on.
	If the Opposition just wanted to mention in law the probability that both parents should have contact, it would take us no further forward because that is already the legal assumption. However if the Opposition want to go further than that, it would serve only to dilute the paramountcy of the child's interests. That is our concern and that is why we do not believe that there should be a change in the law.

Dominic Grieve: Will the Minister give way?

Christopher Leslie: No, I am afraid I really do not have time. We do need a change in the support that we give to separating parents, to enable them to settle disputes more amicably.
	The Conservatives would replace the concept of contact with parenting time—that is in their motion. That might be superficially appealing, but it could also be misleading. Contact is not just for parents—it could also be for grandparents, siblings and others. We can debate the issue, but we disagree with the Opposition on that point.
	It is important that we develop many aspects of policy in this area, and, after wide consultation, the Green Paper was published in July. We want easier access to legal advice on relationship breakdown, and we can do that through existing hotline arrangements—[Interruption.]

Dominic Grieve: Will the Minister give way?

Christopher Leslie: I will give way on the basis of the comment I have just heard.

Dominic Grieve: I thank the Minister for giving way and I am grateful for the tone in which he is conducting the debate, which is very helpful. I do not understand his anxiety about a change to the statutory framework. Does he agree that if that change had the benefit of explaining in clear terms to parents what is expected of them in normal circumstances after divorce, it would be of great value in facilitating contact? Does he agree that that could be achieved without diminishing the paramountcy of the welfare of the child?

Christopher Leslie: The fact that we have been debating the issue, and the confusion generated by the suggestion from the Opposition, shows that adding that extra unnecessary element into statute would not take us any further forward. It is not necessary. The case law already establishes that point and any change in statute as they propose would be pandering to those people with an anecdotal misconception of how the law is framed. The law usually allows both parents to have contact arrangements and, in the vast majority of cases, that happens.
	The next steps for Government policy include more legal advice and better practical encouragement of mediation and dispute resolution. We want to move away from the adversarial court processes, which can often exacerbate acrimony between separating couples, to a position that encourages settlement and agreement. We want more effective court case management and better timeliness—as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) urged—and we want to consider enforcement, for which the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) called in his comments. We need better enforcement of contact orders to ensure that they are followed through and abided by. We also need stronger protection for children from harm. It would not be right if we ignored those fundamental issues today.
	There are guiding principles in this area. The welfare of children must always be paramount. The legal position that both parents, mother and father, are equal before the law in Children Act proceedings is enshrined in law. We should have a bipartisan approach to this issue in future. That is very important, and we always supported the Children Act. There is much to divide politicians today on many different issues, but surely we should be able to find some agreement on this point. Sadly, the courts need to intervene in 10 per cent. of contact cases. That does not mean that the courts are wrong; they must be guided, first and foremost, by what is in the child's best interests, and I ask the House to support the amendment.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
	The House divided: Ayes 168, Noes 283.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
	Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House believes that, on the separation of parents, the welfare of the children should be the paramount consideration in any family court proceedings concerning the upbringing of a child, and recognises that children benefit from a meaningful relationship with both parents after separation, so long as it is safe; congratulates the Government on the proposals in its consultation document Parental Separation: Children's Needs and Parents' Responsibilities, which addresses the realities of the reform that is needed in family justice, including its commitment to legislate to improve facilitation of contact and enforcement of contact orders; notes that the use of the term 'parenting time' in place of 'contact' fails to recognise the important role of the extended family, including children's siblings, in children's upbringing and that contact orders are not only made in relation to parents; and deeply regrets the official Opposition's view that any presumption is needed in law beyond the principle that the welfare of the child is paramount.

CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL

Order for Second Reading read.
	Question, That the Bill be now read a Second time, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No.56 (Consolidated Fund Bills), and agreed to.
	Bill accordingly read a Second time.
	Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith, and agreed to.
	Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No.118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Criminal law

That the draft Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Categories of Offences) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 15th November, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
	Question agreed to.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No.118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Social security

That the draft Social Security, Child Support and Tax Credits (Decisions and Appeals) Amendment Regulations 2004, which were laid before this House on 11th November, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.
	That the draft Child Benefit and Guardian's Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) (Amendment) Regulations 2004, which were laid before this House on 16th November, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
	Question agreed to.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No.118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Building societies

That the draft Building Societies Act 1986 (International Accounting Standards and Other Accounting Amendments) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 11th October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
	Question agreed to.

EUROPEAN DOCUMENTS

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No.119(9) (European Standing Committees),

Flooding

That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 11422/04, Commission Communication on Flood risk management—Flood prevention, protection and mitigation; and supports the Government's view that cooperation and sharing of good practice with other EU Member States on the issue of flood risk management will be of benefit to the United Kingdom.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
	Question agreed to.

INFORMATION

Ordered,
	That Jim Sheridan be discharged from the Information Committee and Chris Mole be added—[Mr. McWilliam, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

PETITIONS
	 — 
	Gateway College

Keith Vaz: My first petition is signed by 3,000 residents of the Rushey Mead area and is in opposition to the proposal by Gateway college to relocate from its current site in the city centre in Leicester to Rushey Fields. The local residents are very concerned about the increased traffic congestion and vandalism that might result, and they are concerned also about the loss of open space in an area where there is not much open space.
	The petition states:
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Education to take steps to halt plans to expand Gateway College.
	To lie upon the Table.

Fireworks

Keith Vaz: My second petition is the result of much hard work by Moira Chambers of Hill Rise, Leicester. It is a petition to restrict fireworks to licensed displays. The petitioners are very concerned at the misuse of fireworks, the fact that they cause danger and annoyance to people, property and animals, and because the fireworks are used late into the night, adding to the costs of the emergency services.
	The petition states:
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Home Secretary to take steps to amend legislation relating to Fireworks in order to:
	Restrict fireworks to licensed organised displays only at fixed times;
	To include Garden Fireworks in the restricted category;
	To reduce the decibel limit to a maximum of 85 db for all fireworks; and
	To make it illegal to use or possess fireworks without a valid licence.
	To lie upon the Table.

CROWN GREEN BOWLING

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]

Helen Jackson: I believe that this is the first time that we have debated the popular sport of crown green bowling in this House. I asked the House of Commons Library to check the point. It examined the records as far back as 1897 and does not think that crown green bowling has been debated in this or the previous century.
	I am delighted to debate the matter with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and Tourism, who knows that my constituency office in Hillsborough is in the centre of a busy park. In the spring and summer, we hear the sound of friendly banter and applause on most afternoons, which is the delightful atmosphere created by Hillsborough Park bowling club. The club has neat flower beds, clipped hedgerows and seats, which frame three well-maintained crown green bowling greens. The club was established around 1908 and is the biggest in the region. Every year, 5,000 players use it and it is registered for national tournaments.
	Hon. Members from the south may not be fully aware of the sport of crown green bowling, because it is common in the north of England in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Wales. The greens are not flat, like those made famous by Francis Drake in Plymouth and, indeed, Edward III, who banned bowling because he said that it put off soldiers from learning archery. Crown greens are rounded and, perhaps, a little uneven, so particular skill is required to prevent the bowls from rolling off.
	Traditionally, crown green bowling is a working-class sport of the north, where participants often played for cash prizes. Now it attracts members of all ages and levels of physical health, although it is particularly associated with men and women in retirement. The locations are convenient—they are almost always on bus routes. Former players of more vigorous sports, such as football, prefer the society and sport of crown green bowling to, perhaps, golf. Many players return to the sport after major surgery. My constituent, Derek Bulloss, who plays for Stannington, has recovered from heart bypass surgery and hip and knee replacements, and he still plays at the age of 77. Indeed, one league player in Sheffield is 94.
	Crown green bowling is a community sport. In my constituency, and no doubt in my right hon. Friend's, clubs exist in every village and community, located in local parks, working men's clubs, behind pubs and in the grounds of steel and factory premises. Bradfield, Stannington, Wadsley, Middlewood, Bolehills, Stocksbridge, Ecclesfield, Chapeltown, Grenoside, Hillsborough, Malin Bridge and Loxley all boast one or more teams that play in local tournaments.
	This is the perfect point at which to stress that virtually all the people involved in organising and managing those clubs work on a voluntary basis. Derek Ellis, who runs the Hillsborough club, lives locally and is well known in the community. Derek Siddons is a former trade union official who used to work at Bassetts and who is tireless in his work for the club. Those people do not have access to private capital to plough into their premises.
	Unfortunately, many of the greens need better upkeep. The clubhouses should be upgraded to meet today's health and safety standards and disability access legislation—indeed, the British Crown Green Bowling Association actively encourages the involvement of players with disabilities. However, it is very hard to find funding for the sport, which is why I called for this Adjournment debate. On 20 April this year, I received a written answer to my parliamentary question about the criteria that Sport England had used to pick the 20 sports eligible for priority lottery funding and whether crown green bowling might be considered for the list. I was told that the selection criteria were threefold: participation rates, retention of members and levels of success; and that the 20 priority sports are badminton, cricket, football, golf, hockey, netball, rugby union, rugby league and squash, in England only, and tennis, athletics, canoeing, cycling, equestrianism, gymnastics, judo, rowing, triathlon, sailing and swimming, UK-wide. Sport England's reason for not considering crown green bowling appropriate was that, in comparison with the 20 sports chosen, there was less overall participation in terms of numbers and diversity.
	In our part of Sheffield, we simply do not agree and neither does the British Crown Green Bowling Association, which has 232,880 registered members. That figure does not even include the many friends who come to watch and enjoy the occasional game, but equates to more than the figures for five of the 20 listed sports added together. I am grateful for the research shared with me by Derek Ellis of the Hillsborough club and George Ollerenshaw of the national association. They told me that a snapshot survey carried out nationally on behalf of the association showed that 150,000 players participate in an average week in the spring and summer. In comparison, the British Amateur Rugby League Association has some 23,000 members, the British Canoe Union 55,000 and the Badminton Association of England 50,000. In fact, apart from football, cricket and perhaps golf, I guess that crown green bowling could be the fourth largest sport in terms of participation. I challenge the Minister to show any participation figures that do not list crown green bowling in the top 10 most popular sports in this country.
	Sport England's second criterion was retention. According to Mr. Ollerenshaw, about 6,000 new members join the association each year and the average period of membership is 25 to 30 years. It is not true to say that it is just a sport for pensioners and, even if it were, pensioners live a long while these days. Most of the top players are between 20 and 50 and it is quite common to find three or even four generations of a family as members of the same club on a bowling green on a Saturday or weekday afternoon in the summer.
	It is a forward-looking sport. Members would like to be able to carry on playing in the autumn and winter, but there are few indoor bowling venues. They would like fully accessible facilities so that members can continue to enjoy the sport for their whole lives. However, that costs money and the sport deserves to be in that priority list for lottery funding. Sport England suggests that that would be possible were there only one overall governing body for bowling. However, to ask a crown green bowling association to join with a flat green bowling association would be like asking rugby league to join with rugby union. I wonder whether Sport England has suggested that to the rugby associations. The two forms of bowling are distinct. They use different bowls and a different jack, have different rules and are played on differently shaped greens.
	The British Crown Green Bowling Association is already recognised as a national governing body by UK Sport. I pay tribute to what the Government are doing for sport in promoting so many new community sports and encouraging people to take part and thus keep active and live longer. They have said:
	"The re-organisation of Sport England is designed to make the best possible use of the funding available to the Government in its drive to use sport to address wider policy aims in health, education and community cohesion."
	Why not apply that to the popular sport of crown green bowling?
	Perhaps the answer is in of the final criterion, which is "success", including the number of competitors in the top 10 in the world rankings. If that is essential, it will effectively exclude for ever what is arguably one of the nation's most popular sports in terms of participants. It is a "community sport" that does not hit international competitive tables but that should not outlaw it from receiving lottery funding when, to all intents and purposes, participants are the very people who pay money into the lottery.
	Sport England's mission is to "start, stay and succeed". However, if the Minister is honest, few sports in the UK can claim a membership as large as the British Crown Green Bowling Association. It was founded in 1907 and coaches junior, senior and veterans' county championships. I would like to know why we are failing to support a sport that keeps so many of our constituents fit, healthy and active in their retirement. Is English sport suffering from ageism or are we interested in supporting only potential medal winners?
	I am sure that life expectancy in my constituency is going up because of the Government's excellent policies but it is probably also slightly due to the popularity of crown green bowling, which keeps people happy and healthy throughout their lives and promotes an excellent community spirit and way of life.
	I cannot end my speech without mentioning that, since I applied for the Adjournment debate, I understand that Sport England is about to announce—perhaps we will hear more tonight—some individual funding for Hillsborough park. That would help the club in my constituency to upgrade its pavilion for its disabled members and open a café for other users of the park. It would be wonderful news if the Minister could confirm the rumours that I have heard. Such funding would enable the installation of an all-weather green, a new social hall, shower facilities and fully accessible facilities for the disabled. I hope that that is the case but even if it were, it would affect only one pavilion in one park in one city. I argue that the association nationally deserves to be on the priority list for mainstream lottery funding because of what it does for our constituents in all the constituencies that have those wonderful clubs and facilities.

Richard Caborn: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson) on securing this debate on the future of crown green bowling. This is a sport in which I have participated on a good number of occasions in my local park in Sheffield, Hollings End park, which is very similar to Hillsborough. There are two crown green bowling greens there and some excellent bowlers. As my hon. Friend said, the game is a major part of not only the sporting infrastructure, but the social infrastructure. It is a very desirable sport that has a tremendous following, in both participation and spectators. Many people go to watch it, and say that it is a delight to watch.
	I also welcome the opportunity that this debate provides for us to discuss a sport that is enjoyed by thousands of people in this country but is often left out by the media. Some years ago, crown green bowling got quite a lot of media coverage, but it does not get so much now, which is unfortunate. Like my hon. Friend, I come from Sheffield and know many of the people to whom she referred. They are tireless campaigners for crown green bowling, and I join her in noting that they contribute a tremendous amount voluntarily to the communities in the various parts of our great city.
	I also go to Bramhall Lane, the mecca of football that houses Sheffield United, the one great team in Sheffield. A gentleman called Robert Jackson also goes there, and he is associated with crown green bowling. He was the BBC commentator on the sport for many years; he brought "Praise or Grumble" to light, and similar programmes have now been reproduced by many local radio stations. He lobbies me on the issue of crown green bowling every time I go to Bramhall Lane.

Helen Jackson: I can assure the Minister that Robert Jackson is listening to our debate at this very minute.

Richard Caborn: The wonders of radio! I hope that he will listen carefully to what I have to say.
	I would like to set this debate about funding for crown green bowling within the overall context of Government funding for sport. This Government have invested more than any other in sport and physical activity. Indeed, we have invested more than £3 billion, including lottery funding. Our commitment to sport is strong, and will continue. This unprecedented public investment includes: £581 million to our schools from the new opportunities for PE and sport programme for school sport capital projects; £130 million from Space for Sport and the Arts towards primary school projects in 65 deprived areas; and just under £500 million from the Exchequer for the PE, school sport and club links programme, which is committed to achieving our ambitious targets for school co-ordinator partnerships, specialist sport colleges and primary link teachers. The new Active England programme, administered by the Big Lottery fund and Sport England, is investing £108 million in a new generation of community sport facilities.
	In the community club sector—the lifeblood of sport in this country—we have introduced a range of financial reliefs, including mandatory rate relief at 80 per cent., and exemptions from tax on income generated. I should add that I am delighted by the take-up by bowls clubs of the reliefs offered by the community amateur sports club scheme: 287 clubs have so far registered, the second highest number from any sport in this country. Only 2,000 sports clubs, out of a potential 40,000-plus, have applied for funding under that scheme so far. I hope that there will be more. With gift aid, mandatory rate relief and the other tax breaks, more than £5 million has now been invested directly into those clubs, so if we can reach those 40,000 clubs, we should be able to invest between £35 million and £40 million every year. I hope that many more clubs will apply for the funding.
	Not only have this Government invested more than any other in sport, we have also transformed the way in which we look at sport. We have recognised the value of sport as a means of achieving wider policy aims in health, education and community cohesion. Public funding for sport is therefore working harder than ever before. But with this wider recognition of sport's potential come additional responsibilities. That means that sport needs to take a look at itself, and we need to ask how we can modernise it. It has to meet those challenges.
	Since the Government's strategy for sport and physical activity was set out clearly in "Game Plan", Sport England and UK Sport have worked with the national governing bodies of sport to help them to modernise sport—the way it is organised, funded and administered—and to make national governing bodies fit for purpose in the 21st century.
	As part of that modernisation process, Sport England has simplified its funding structure into two streams, one at national and one at community level. At national level, Sport England announced last year that it would make a prioritised investment of £130 million in 30 key sports, to which my hon. Friend referred. The national governing bodies of each of those 30 sports are working with Sport England to develop whole sport plans.
	Whole sport planning provides a map for the whole of a sport from the grass roots through to the elite level. It identifies the resources that the governing body needs to achieve its aims and allows Sport England to measure the value for money of that public investment. Sport is being made directly responsible for the impact it makes, and I am delighted by the way that sport has risen to that challenge.
	Let me turn to the issue at hand. I can fully appreciate what my hon. Friend said about why crown green bowls has been brought to the attention of the House. As many as 200,000 people enjoy participating in this sport on a regular basis. It makes a real contribution to their quality of life and to the development of communities in cities, towns and villages up and down the country. As she said, it also helps to provide a healthy lifestyle for many of those who participate, and there is also a social side.
	I can understand, therefore, that there may be concerns about the implications that the modernisation of bowls could have for crown green bowling. As I said earlier, Sport England and UK Sport are working with the governing bodies of every sport to help them to deliver more cost-effective administration. This will release funds for the very people that we want to get it—the sports clubs and their members. Therefore, I strongly endorse the policy being followed by Sport England and UK Sport in this area.
	Bowls cannot be an exception. The sport surely does not stand to benefit from the duplication of effort and resources created by the existence of several different national governing bodies. Indeed, crown green bowling recognised that when it merged two of the sport's national governing bodies in 1989.

Helen Jackson: I am glad that my right hon. Friend recognises that, because is it not the case that the only reason for there being five bowls associations is that flat green bowls has not modernised and consolidated its clubs in the same way as crown green?

Richard Caborn: That is true, and I shall come to that. On my hon. Friend's point, I am encouraged by the progress made by the four governing bodies for lawn bowls towards the establishment of a self-sufficient and sustainable governing body for the flat green game of bowls in England, which is to be called Bowls England.
	Sport England has supported the unification steering group set up to consider the most appropriate method to achieve that. I should make it clear that none of this is being done without the knowledge of the other codes. The British Crown Green Bowling Association and its colleagues representing federation, short mat and carpet bowls have been consulted on the process and attended the recent meeting of the steering group.
	The draft constitution for the new governing body holds out the opportunity for other codes of the game of bowls in England to become part of Bowls England in the future. However, it is recognised that this may not be appropriate for some governing bodies of the game, such as the British Crown Green Bowling Association, which operates at a UK, not an English, level. However, there is a commitment for all the governing bodies for bowls in England to work together more efficiently and effectively to the benefit of the sport of bowls right across the country.
	The unification steering group has met with representatives from all the governing bodies for bowls in England to discuss the issue of unification and to facilitate the best method for the governing bodies to work in partnership for the future of bowls. All codes of the game will not be forced to merge with Bowls England. While I recognise that unification of the governing bodies of all codes of bowls may not be appropriate, I believe that there are still ways in which the different codes can work together for mutual benefit. Their joint working on a shared bowls facilities strategy, to facilitate a more strategic approach to the development of facilities, has proved that. I hope that that collaboration is a blueprint for the future. For my part, I am willing to help when I can to bring about the appropriate and sensible resolution of these issues, whether by bringing together the governing bodies of bowls in a meeting, or by writing to their chief executives.
	In closing, let me assure the House that whatever changes occur to the governing bodies of bowls, lottery funding for individual clubs, in every code, will not be at risk. Bowls clubs of all codes will continue to benefit from the vast investment in grassroots sport made by the lottery. To date, they have received 345 awards, totalling £38 million, which have enabled the construction of facilities costing more than £66 million. Those facilities include, for example, the new floodlit crown green bowling facility for the South Kirkby colliery miners welfare scheme in Yorkshire, which was made possible by a lottery grant of £100,000.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough indicated that there had been an application to Sport England. The news is that Sport England has recently awarded an Active England grant of £559,760—which represents 85 per cent. of the total cost of the project—for the development of a new bowling pavilion, athletics track and play area in the very park to which she referred, Hillsborough park. That demonstrates that the Government's investment in sport, through the lottery and the Exchequer, is transforming, and will continue to transform, sports provision in this country.
	That good news for my hon. Friend, Hillsborough park and the wider area shows that the Government want to ensure that those thousands of people who enjoy crown green bowling can continue to do so. We also want more people to get involved in crown green bowling and sports of every kind in their local communities. We believe in the power of sport to enrich people's lives, which is why our commitment to sport is strong and will remain so.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at fourteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.